When the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board released April’s housing statistics, there were not many surprises in the report, at least from my perspective.

Sales activity was down substantially, prices were pretty much flat, and new listings were also substantially down. In what has amounted pretty much to a world-wide lockdown (let that sink in for a moment…) these numbers could have been way worse!!

Now what do I mean by that?

Well, we are experiencing the worst world wide health pandemic in the past 100 years. And sales of housing in TRREB area went from a frothy approximate 9000 properties in April 2019 to roughly 3000 in April 2020.

They didn’t go to zero. And what about values? on average, they actual up-ticked about $1,000 on average. Wait, the stock market dropped 25%-30% and housing values pretty much were flat year over year. Yes. Now, the stock market did bounce back as I had mentioned in last months post. Which I would say is a positive sign for all.

Now, let’s take a deeper dive into the housing numbers, where it’s not so rosy of a picture.

Roughly 82% of all sales were under the $1,000,000 (One million dollar) mark. When you compare this to the the 1st quarter of 2020, the average ratio was about 75%, meaning 25% sold above the Million Dollar mark.

Now there can be a lot of reasons for why this is, but looking only at the numbers, one can draw the conclusion that the higher end market is being less active, and this could reflect in TRREB’s posted average selling price. (NOTE: TRREB also uses the MLS HPI ‘home price index’ which also references that higher priced properties are down activity wise from last year. Remember that this is # of sales not $value of sales.)

When you piece all together the information that has been put out over April, you can see that overall sales activity is down, new listings are being held back, prices are stable, and all of this is happening during a pandemic.

So what’s next to come? No one truly knows, as most of it will depend on how long it takes for any sense of back to normal living conditions come about. But I think once many of the condo buildings who have shut down, allow back in Realtors and Buyers for in person viewings, and our higher end market activity (both Buyers and Sellers) returns, we will start to get a better picture on what lies ahead. My gut tells me that pricing will be flat and may even drop down for awhile on certain property types, although I think activity will pick back up overall. Demand is strong for Toronto real estate. And our relative low rate of deaths due to Covid-19 in a province of our size, as well a s across our country, will also be noted long term throughout the rest of World.

If you are planning on being in the market, reach out now to your mortgage broker or bank contact. Get your approval lined up and be ready to act, and always remember, that buying real estate is a long term plan.