The real estate board representing Canada’s largest housing market is predicting the peak may be in the rear view for Toronto after buying activity fell further from record levels in June.
There were 11,106 property sales last month across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), according to data released by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) Tuesday. While that represents a 28.5 per cent surge compared to a year earlier, it’s a seven per cent drop from May and a sharp comedown from March when more than 15,000 homes were sold. TRREB said the sequential decline in sales was 9.1 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis.
The average price for all homes sold across the GTA in June was $1,089,536; that represented a 17 per cent jump compared to a year earlier, and it was a modest drop from May when a new record of more than $1.1 million was set.
Sales and prices fell sequentially across all the major home types tracked by TRREB other than in the condo market, where modest gains were registered.
Despite the slowdown in June, TRREB nudged up its sales outlook for this year on Tuesday after taking first-quarter activity into account. The new forecast is for 115,000 transactions, as compared to its prior call for 105,000. It also boosted its average price estimate for the year to $1,070,000.
“Home sales soared at the start of the year, with a huge sales record in the first quarter. However, the record pace of sales has run its course as pent-up demand has increasingly been satisfied in the absence of normal population growth,” said TRREB Chief Market Analyst Jason Mercer in the release.
