Once upon a time in a not so distant past, the real estate housing market in Toronto (and the GTA) followed a seasonal path in activity.

Buyers would start their home purchasing search in the spring, as the winter remnants melted away and the return of the sun made all things pretty again. Along came Summer, and we would slow down, as we rushed outdoors to bask in the beauty of Canada that June ushers in. Fall rolls around and we pick back up, getting those final buyers and sellers taken care of, then we would settle down for a slight winter hibernation.

Boy have things ever changed! The mad dash to get a property on the market today mirrors that of  pharmaceutical companies and the rush to get covid vaccines out into the world, making for an extremely stressful time for all.

Buyers are stressed. Sellers are stressed. Realtors, Lawyers, Inspectors, Appraisers, Mortgage Brokers. All stressed. 

How stressful has it gotten? Well, this past December 24th, Christmas Eve, I was presenting an offer on a property on behalf of a buyer client, ours which was one of twelve!! Never in my 25 year career have I presented an offer mere hours before holiday festivities. Typically I would be doing my last minute Christmas shopping then, not shopping for a house.

Houses (mainly detached and semi detached) are still the current darlings of choice. For the lucky few who can afford the sticker price plus thirty percent. Semi detached sales are up 84% over January 2020. Townhomes saw a 46% increase in a activity. Detached homes, the rarest gem in Toronto real estate saw a 30% increase. How did condo sales do you ask?

Up a mind blowing 85%! Yes, you read that correct. Condo sales surged 85% over January 2020 numbers.

Now, it’s not all rainbows and puppies on the condo front. Prices are still down, roughly 8% on the condo side. But the deals are getting more difficult to find than you could pick up, back in the fall of 2020. I think we’ll see prices to start to bounce back a bit on the condo side as the gap widens between low rise and high rise housing types. Average condo prices are around $625,000.00

House prices continue to rise and semi’s led the charge with a whopping 21.5% price increase, putting the average semi detached house price across the 416 at just over $1.2 mil. Detached prices are up a hefty 16% making the average price $1,581,000.00. 

The healthy part to all of this is that new listings actualy increased by 20% to help offset the lower inventory, but the demand is so high, a 50% increase in monthly activity still causes a shortage pointing towards even higher prices ahead.

Spring has sprung in the real estate sales market and it will be interesting to see how long this can hold up. Stay tuned.