(Toronto) The Greater Toronto Area real estate market saw home sales and prices barely change between July and August, but the area’s real estate board expects more volatility to come.
A total of 5,294 residential property sales were completed in August, almost 1% more than in July. However, August sales are down 5.2% from the same month last year.
Added to this is an average house price of $1,082,496, 3% lower than July, but 0.3% higher than August 2022.
These numbers reflect higher borrowing costs and uncertainty about the economy and Bank of Canada decisions, which have led to ten interest rate hikes over the past 18 months.
The rapid succession of rate hikes has so far caused many potential buyers to put buying plans on hold and sellers to wait until buyers are once again more confident in their borrowing power.
The average price of a detached home in the GTA rose almost 3% year-over-year to more than 1.4 million in August, while that of semi-detached properties rose almost 7% to just a little more than 1 million.
Over the same period, the average price of townhouses rose just under 4% to $935,800, while condominium apartments fell about 1% to $705,572.
On the sales side, the number of single-detached homes changing hands was down 12% in August from a year earlier. Sales of semi-detached properties fell 14.4%, but sales of condominiums rose 7.6% and sales of townhouses rose 0.6%.
