After a couple of weeks of a gradual decline in the GTA’s real estate market, we did see the market hit the breaks in the fourth week of March when sales declined 37% over the previous year 1/ 
While a dramatic drop in sales is often coupled with an increase in inventory, we didn’t see that for the fourth week of March. Active listings actually declined over the previous week in part because new listings dropped by 33%. There was also a 27% inc in cancelled listings 2/
Both sales and new listings are declining as more people hit pause on their real estate transactions as instructed by the province and the Ontario Real Estate Association to reduce the spread of COVID-19 3/
On a YOY basis home prices are up 9% over last year, but that is hiding the fact that average prices over the past 4 weeks have declined nearly 10% from the last week of February to the last week of March, from $949K to $856K 4/
Does that mean everyone’s home is worth 10% less that it was a month ago? Not really. A good portion of this decline has to do with the fact that there are more lower priced homes selling today when compared to 4 weeks ago. 6/
In the 4th week of Feb, the % of homes that sold for under $1M was 69% compared to 79% at the end of March. Similarly, 10% of sales were for over $1.5M in Feb compared to just 5% in the last week of March. 7/
That of course does not mean that a seller today should expect the same elevated prices that some sellers achieved a month ago. You are of course going to get a higher sale price on your house if you have 15 people competing for it vs 1 person 8/
But most homes are still selling for market value in part because we have not seen a surge in inventory. Toronto’s housing market still has only 1.31 months of inventory which has helped keep prices stable.
Questions/comments are welcome! /
Questions/comments are welcome! /
Ooops, that should be brakes
