Michelle Zadikian, BNN Bloomberg
Toronto home prices are falling
VIDEO OUT
It’s been a quiet summer so far for Toronto’s housing market. The latest data from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) on Thursday showed home sales fell 47.4 per cent year over year in July. Sales were down 24.1% on a monthly basis. Seasonally adjusted, the TRREB reported that sales fell 0.3% from June to July. With some homebuyers on the sidelines, it appears that some potential sellers are choosing to hold off on listing their properties. New listings fell 4.1% in July from a year earlier. TRREB said it expects new listings to continue to follow sales trends next year. Amid weaker competition among buyers, the average sales price of a property declined from a peak in February, reaching $1,074,754 last month, led by the single-family home segment. “With significant increases in short-term lending rates, there is a shift in consumer sentiment, not market fundamentals,” Kevin Krieger, president of TRREB, said in a release. He urged the federal government to implement measures to improve affordability for buyers in the face of rising borrowing costs and high inflation. He also criticized recent increases in council development charges. “Toronto City Council should consider its recently approved 46 per cent increase in development fees, bringing the average cost of all government fees and charges to a staggering $350,000+ for each new detached house and over $180,000 for a new condominium,” Krieger said. “We applaud the city for granting a development fee exemption for up to three additional units on single lots, which will encourage more missing mid-multiplex housing, but this exemption alone is not enough.”
Add Comment