Increase in GTA real estate listings does little to ease overheated market, report says
The number of houses on the market has and the number of sales has to grow for months before the market is rebalanced, says TREB.

thestar.com
By TESS KALINOWSKI
April 5, 2017

The number of resale homes grew 15 per cent in March compared to the same month last year, offering stressed property hunters the first glimmer of hope in many months that the market pressures standing in the way of home ownership might finally be easing.

But it will take more than a month of increased listings to signal that the overheated market is cooling, cautioned the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) on Wednesday.

“A substantial period of months in which listings growth is greater than sales growth will be required to bring the GTA housing market back into balance,” said the board’s director of market analysis Jason Mercer in a news release.

He stressed the need for governments to use “an evidence-based approach” in trying to temper the market.

The board also noted that competition for homes remained fierce, continuing to push the average home price across the region up 33 per cent year over year - a rise of 29 per cent on the board’s benchmark index.

TREB’s month-end statistics showed the number of sales also increased about 18 per cent - 12,077 sales last month compared to 10,260 in March 2016.

The cost of home ownership remains far beyond average earnings growth too. The average home price for the Greater Toronto Region across all housing types was $916,567 last month - $228,556 higher than the same period last year.

Detached houses in Toronto sold for $1.6 million on average. In the 905 areas outside the city, the average price rose 34 per cent to $1.12 million.

The cost of condos in the Toronto area also rose about 33 per cent to $518,879 on average.

The news comes as the approaching spring market has injected new urgency from governments about the need to slow the price ascension which is squeezing buyers and renters out of the housing market.

Provincial Finance Minister Charles Sousa has suggested he is considering cooling measures as part of the provincial budget this month.

Last week Mayor John Tory publicly mused about the potential for a vacant home tax to inject more rentals onto Toronto’s housing scene.

Average home prices were up more than 60 per cent in three municipalities, East Gwillimbury, Georgina and Uxbridge, noted realtor John Pasalis in an online-post this week.

Tory’s idea won’t do anything to temper the market, said the broker of record for Realosophy in a Monday blog post.

“If we want to cool our market down, our government has to make it harder for investors (domestic and foreign) to buy single family homes - it’s that simple,” wrote Pasalis.