Toronto Real Estate Market Conditions 2011

January 6, 2012: At the beginning of 2011 the real estate professionals in Toronto were predicting a slow-down in sales and moderate price increases. Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis, said at the beginning of February: "The average selling price is expected to grow at a moderate pace in 2011. Growth rates in the three to five per cent range will be sustainable from an affordability perspective".

It did look like the Toronto real estate sales were slowing. Active listings in January were slightly higher compared with a year earlier, and sales were 13% lower. But new listings were coming in slowly - 10% fewer in January, 9% fewer in February, and by March the number of active listings was lower, compared with the previous year, by 11%, but the number of sales increased. 19% fewer properties were listed in March, and the average price was up five percent year-over-year.

In April we saw 30% fewer new listings, compared to April 2010, and the available real estate inventory was lower by 24%. The tight real estate market conditions resulted in average price rising by 9% annually. May results were similar with regard to price increases, but there was an increase in the number of new listings (by 1,500 from April, although still almost 3,000 fewer than the previous year). In June the number of new listings was only 2% lower than last year, but the pent-up demand resulted in an average price increase by 9.5%.

Real estate sales were sluggish in the first two months, due to low inventory. They increased considerably in the second quarter, with June increase of 21% in comparison to June 2010. One-third of the year's sales of freehold homes happened in April, May and June. We are still firmly in a seller's market conditions. Everyone hoped that with the strong price growth we will see more properties being offered for sale, and, indeed, since July the number of new listings increased in comparison to the previous year - although not dramatically.

Average prices followed their typical yearly trend, and in December were, at $451,436 , 4% higher compared to December 2010. Yearly real estate price increase in the Greater Toronto Area was 8%, to $465,412 . Yearly average time on the market decreased by 13% to 32 days.

Districts in the Toronto Real Estate Board MLS system were re-drafted at the beginning of July, and the statistics we provide will, from now, illustrate only sales in the City of Toronto.

In the fourth quarter of 2011 sales of freehold homes in Toronto were as follows:

In October:

Area	number of sales	100% of list	over 100% of list	% of homes sold over asking
Central	539	52	261	58.1%
East	589	69	224	49.7%
West	503	55	175	45.7%

In November:

Area	number of sales	100% of list	over 100% of list	% of homes sold over asking
Central	486	41	206	50.8%
East	565	58	234	51.7%
West	444	28	135	36.7%

In December:

Area	number of sales	100% of list	over 100% of list	% of homes sold over asking
Central	220	14	74	40.0%
East	292	32	93	42.8%
West	268	17	56	27.2%

Final 2011 results:

Area	number of sales	100% of list	over 100% of list	% of homes sold over asking
Central	5735	750	2436	55.6%
East	6987	837	2931	53.9%
West	5786	571	1860	42.0%
Toronto	18508	2158	7227	50.7%

If you wish to know sold numbers for just one ar a few of MLS districts, please contact us, and we will be happy to send you the information.

The following graphs illustrate the performance of Toronto real estate market since 2006.

The graph above shows the percentage of active listings that sell each month. Shaded area delineates a stable market. If the sales drop below that area, real estate prices fall. During the last five and a half years we have experienced such situation only in the last quarter of 2008.

Looking at the graph illustrating the average monthly prices we notice not only the differences year-over-year, but also seasonal changes.

The number of active listings is up, comparing to the beginning of the year, and it was somewhat higher in December than in the last two years.

For information on real estate conditions in Toronto in 2010, please visit our 2010 report .

If you have questions regarding current Toronto real estate market, I will be glad to help.  Please e-mail me at [email protected] or call my office at 416-481-6137.