As forecast March’s residential resale market continued its upward trajectory, constrained only by available supply and the lack of affordability driven by the high cost of mortgage financing and the requirement to stress-test borrowers. Stress testing means that buyers must qualify at 2 percent higher than the interest rate of the mortgage they are seeking. In March the five-year fixed-term mortgage interest rate was slightly below 5 percent. Buyers, therefore, must qualify at approximately...

As forecast in March’s Market Report, April’s residential resale market continued its upward trajectory for the third month in a row. Sales volumes increased by more than 9 percent compared to March and the average sale price, which also bounced for the third month in a row since January, increased by more than 3 percent compared to March.

As forecast in December, the slumping resale market of 2022 continued into the first month of 2023. Compared to January 2022, sales of all property types declined by almost 45 percent. Due to the extraordinarily strong pandemic market early last year, on a year-over-year basis sales volumes will post substantial negative variances until at least April. By April 2022, increased borrowing costs had begun to slow the residential resale market with an unprecedented impact. Since March of last year, sales...

The Toronto and area residential resale market limped to the end of 2022, a continuation of the pattern that became clear and established as interest rates began to rise in March of this year. As the Bank of Canada continued its punishing benchmark rate hikes, both sales and average sale prices have been decimated. Once again, no surprises in December.

Here is what has happened to sales since the Bank of Canada commenced its rate hikes in March.

With one month still remaining in 2021, November’s reported sales brought the total year-to-date sales to 115,716 residential properties sold. We will finish the year with approximately 122,000 sales, eclipsing the previous annual record for properties sold in 2016. In that year 113,040 properties traded hands. As will become evident, given the supply problems the market is experiencing, 2021’s record-breaking accomplishment is not likely to be surpassed for some time, and definitely...

In the September Market Report, five themes that were driving the Toronto and area marketplace were identified. These themes have become prominent during the course of 2021 and it is becoming evident that they will be the key features of the residential resale market for the remainder of 2021 and into the early months of 2022. These themes,

with slight variation, were prominent in the October market data.

1. AVERAGE SALE PRICE

Prior to October, it appeared that the average sale price for all properties...

A number of themes became clear in August, themes that will drive and impact the Toronto and area residential resale market for the remainder of this year and no doubt into 2022.

The first and most important is supply. In August only 10,609 new properties came to market. This contrasts sharply with the 18,599 that came to market in 2020. What is even more shocking is that at the end of August there were only 8,201 properties available to buyers, a 51 percent decline from the same period last year...

In some ways the July resale market’s performance was anticlimactic. We could see it unfolding in June, and as a result, there were few surprises. Sales continued their decline – in June 11,106 properties were reported sold, dropping to 9,390 in July, but still a strong month by historical standards. The record for reported sales was established last July at 11,081. At the end of the day there are only so many buyers in our given geographical area, and since the beginning of 2021, almost...

There were 11,106 resale properties reported sold in June in the greater Toronto area. In the City of Toronto 3,850 properties changed hands. In both areas, these numbers were substantially lower than the astronomical peak achieved in March. Having said that, sales activity in June was only outpaced by June sales achieved in June 2016.