The Toronto and area residential resale market picked up where 2016 ended. In fact it accelerated the pace of sales we witnessed in December. This is unusual behavior for the market in January, usually a slow month, as buyers and sellers kick out the holiday season cobwebs. But these are unusual times, very unusual times.
Happy New Year. I hope you have had a good start to 2017. It would be folly for me to make any big predictions about President-elect Trump and his impact on real estate or anything else. I think we can agree that uncertain, unpredictable, and unconventional are terms to describe this man. And while businesses (and many ordinary humans) tend to want predictability and stability, there is certainly a big part of the world that is unhappy with the status quo. The stock markets seem happy with him so far, but we have a divided world.
Another record breaking year for the Toronto and area residential resale market. In 2016 113,133 properties were reported sold. This number shattered the previous record of 101,213 properties sold in 2015. That makes two consecutive years in which Toronto and area sales have exceeded 100,000.
In my office we have a white board where agents post their recent sales. It includes the address, list price, sold price, number of offers and who represented the Buyer and the Seller. The board I wish we had is the wall of deals not made: Deals Not Done. These would offers prepared and presented in multiple offer situations for clients and who did not get the deal, because that would be very revealing, too. Recently I represented Buyers for a lovely home that sold for well over list price. There were 6 offers all together. There had been 7, but one dropped out I assume because of the competition. The next night, a colleague texted me at about 9 PM to say she was sitting in a car, waiting, and was representing one of 20 offers on a property that was a “first time buyers” home, on a busy street in the far east end of Toronto. It sold for over $900,000. These are just anecdotal stories: we all have them. You’ve heard them.
In October the Federal Finance Minister implemented new “stress testing” for buyers looking for high ratio loans. A buyer seeking a high ratio loan normally has less than 20 percent of the purchase of the property. The new “stress testing” rules require borrowers to be qualified at banks’ posted rates, and not the discounted rates, the rate of interest they will actually be paying.
As the month of September comes to an end, the two major concerns about Toronto and area’s resale market are declining supply, to critical levels, and rapidly rising home prices. Both have been issues throughout 2016, but they have now become hot points that are attracting the attention of government and potential government intervention.
The Toronto residential resale market set a new record for sales in July. It appears that there are no more seasonal slowdowns. Almost 10,000 properties were reported sold in July, a month when historically both buyers and sellers took vacations and the number of sales dropped noticeably.