The first chapter of this year’s Toronto area real estate story reads a lot like the last with January delivering a 22 per cent year-over-year increase in home prices, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board’s (TREB) benchmark index.
The average selling price of a home in the region was $770,745 last month on the index — $140,552 more than a year ago, TREB said Friday.
Low-rise housing — detached, semi-detached and town homes — saw the largest year-over-year price growth of 26-28 per cent compared to last January. But condo prices also rose 14.5 per cent across the region, to $442,598, compared to January 2016.
Condos saw the greater gains, however, in the number of sales, increasing 26.7 per cent across the region year over year.
Overall, the number of re-sale home transactions rose 11.8 per cent compared to January 2016. There were 5,188 sales last month, compared to 4,640 last January.
In a refrain that has become familiar to property watchers and home buyers, TREB officials are blaming historically low levels of new listings.
“The number of active listings on TREB’s Multiple Listings Service system was essentially half of what was available at the same time last year,” said the board’s director of market analysis Jason Mercer.
TREB has been urging the government to address the supply side of housing policies instead of focusing on demand.
New home builders are also pushing the province to go slower on its new population density targets in the Toronto region and municipalities to clear residential development approvals sooner.
TREB is predicting a strong year for Toronto region real estate with gains between 10 and 16 per cent with single-family homes in greatest demand.
A TREB survey by Ipsos last fall shows that more than half of home purchases this year are expected to be those of first-time buyers.
“However, many of these would-be buyers will have problems finding a home that meets their needs in a market with little inventory,” said TREB president Larry Cerqua in a press release.
Detached houses in Toronto were the most expensive category, averaging $1.34 million last month. But there were 5.5 per cent fewer sales of those homes in January compared to the same month last year.
In the Toronto region, Simcoe registered the greatest price gains —28.46 per cent — followed by Durham Region, where the index registered a 26.43 per cent price increase year over year. Homes in Toronto saw the lowest increase of 16.33 per cent.
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