Single-family home sales in the GTA have risen by 20%

Mar 31 2021, 3:00 pm

After a slow down in the number of home sales over the past year, the GTA real estate market is starting to pick up steam, particularly for single-family homes.

A new report from the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) took a look at GTA home sale data for February and found that last month, overall home sales in the region rose 9% above the 10-year average.

In the report, the 10-year average was used as a comparison point rather than comparing the data to sales from February of 2020 because the housing market was particularly hot that month.

“We need to be careful when comparing February of this year to the exceptionally busy month of February 2020, just before the pandemic hit,” said BILD President & CEO Dave Wilkes. “We are talking about completely different sets of circumstances. The fact is that February 2021 was a solid month when compared with the 10-year average.”

The Toronto real estate market has seen extremely limited inventory available over the past year, driving up competition and prices while lowering the number of sales. But, according to the report, sales of single-family homes in the GTA saw an increase in sales compared to the 10-year average, going up by 20%, according to the report. The benchmark price for single-family homes has risen over the past year by a whopping 25.1% to $1,373,473.

Condo sales — of which there were 788 in Toronto during February of this year — are also picking back up and are expected to keep growing.

“Sales in the new condominium apartment sector in the GTA returned to a more typical level in February,” said Ryan Wyse, manager of analytics and data solutions for Altus Group, the company that provided the sales data. “With additional new supply on the horizon, the spring market will likely yield its usual increase in activity; however, economic challenges related to the pandemic remain and will continue to provide some obstacles in the near term.”

As a result of the high demand, prices have continued to soar and the benchmark price for GTA condos rose 8.4% over the past year to $1,042,064, according to the report.

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gta home sales

With all the interest that’s been shown in the real estate market recently, ensuring that enough homes are continually coming onto the market to meet the overall housing demand still remains a concern for the industry.

“The demand for new homes in the GTA continues strong, but bringing enough homes to market continues to be a challenge for our industry, given the impacts of the pandemic, ongoing union membership disputes and materials shortages,” Wilkes said. “We all need to work together to ensure we can deliver homes to the GTA families that are waiting for them.”

What effect the hopefully soon approaching end to the pandemic will have on the GTA real estate industry, particularly for single-family home sales, remains to be seen.

Laura HanrahanLaura Hanrahan

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