TORONTO, June 17, 2009- Greater Toronto REALTORS® reported 5,185 transactions in the first half of June – an increase of 19 per cent compared to the same period last year.
“Households in the GTA have become more confident in purchasing a home over the past three months,” said TREB President Maureen O’Neill. “Affordability, due in part to very low borrowing costs, has played a key role.”
The average price for MLS® sales was $407,716, up by two per cent compared to last year. “Heightened interest in ownership housing this spring has solidified resale home prices,” according to Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis. “The number of home buyers has been high relative to the number of listings, pushing the average price above last year’s level.”
Real estate market information is important. I regularly discuss the numbers with my buyer and seller clients.
Unit sales of residential properties were down again in May, by 25% from 2008. The rest of the story is that the number of new listings coming on the market in May was down by 19% from last year. This resulted in a May sales to new listings ratio of 58%, which historically is a good number. The number of active residential listings at the end of May was almost identical to last year. Although sales have been consistently lower year to date, the number of active listings is not higher than last year.
So the current real estate market conditions are: typical number of listings from which to choose, no upward pressure on residential housing prices and lower monthly payments due to mortgage interest rates at historically low levels. In a nutshell, a balanced market that slightly
favours buyers.
Here is a graph to illustrate residential sales year-to-date.
