GTA home prices soar in June as sales continued to decline

As Toronto begins its economic recovery, the housing market is seeing an improvement in home prices which soared in June of this year, but sales continued to decline.

According to a recent report by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB), the GTA saw the average selling price for all home types combined was $930,869 – up by 11.9% compared to June 2019.

The actual and seasonally-adjusted average selling price was also up significantly compared to May 2020, by 7.8% and 9.8% respectively.

While home prices saw a substantial increase in active listings at the end of June 2020 were down by 28.8% compared to the same time last year.

“Growth in new listings will need to outstrip growth in sales for a number of months before active listings approach last year’s levels,” the report says.

There were also 8,701 home sales in June, which resulted in a substantial increase over the May 2020 result — both on an actual (89%) and seasonally adjusted basis (84%).

The report showed that home prices also went up by 8.2% year-over-year in June.

When it came to home types, detached and semi-detached homes in Toronto increase by 14.3% and 22% respectively.

“Following the broader movement to reopen the economy in June, we experienced a very positive result in terms of home sales and selling prices. Before the onset of COVID-19, there was a great deal of pent-up demand in the market. This pent-up demand arguably increased further over the past three months,” said TRREB President Lisa Patel.

“We are still in the early days of recovery, but barring any setbacks, we should continue to see stronger market conditions in the second half of 2020 as households look to satisfy their ownership housing needs.”

• See also:
  • Detached housing market in Toronto balanced in June: report
  • GTA housing market remains just as competitive as before the pandemic: report

In February 2020, TRREB released its housing market outlook in its Market Year in Review and Outlook Report.

At that time, they forecasted 97,000 sales for 2020, but given the impact of COVID-19 on the level of home sales in March, April and May of this year, that sales mark will not likely be attainable.

However, given the strong come back in June, if sales follow the regular seasonal pattern in the second half of this year, 80,000 sales will be a realistic target.

If sales reach this mark, it would represent an 8.8% decline compared to 2019.

And when it comes to average price TRREB’s forecast released in February 2020 was $900,000, which still remains a realistic goal.

In fact, if market conditions continue to unfold as they did in June, it is possible that the average price for 2020 could edge above the $900,000 mark.  Through the first six months of 2020, the average selling price sat at over $891,000, including a June 2020 average price of almost $931,000.

And based on TRREB’s new consumer polling, 27% of residents are still likely to buy a home  in the next year, which is in line with previous polling.

So even though the pandemic has hit the housing market, there is still activity amongst sellers and buyers.