Consumers are now armed with more data than ever on housing. TRREB makes all of its monthly statistics available to the public via its website (and has for a long time). You've got several websites to choose from that give you sold data. And you've got a handful that use some kind of algorithms (I'm assuming) to give you price estimates for homes that are currently on the market - which is important these days since 65% of freeholds (detached, semi-detached, and rowhouses) this year... [read more]

A real split is developing in the freehold versus condo markets. We've seen them act differently before (which is why I run separate charts), but it's getting pretty extreme now. This year has been such a wild ride. In February things were hot. March was a tale of two halves, with the onset of COVID-19 mesures. Then April was one long month of riding the brakes, followed by the start of recovering in May and June as listings rose (as did sales). And then the... [read more]

Recapping the year to date, January and February started out hot. March was a tale of two halves, with the first half continuing hot, and then the brakes coming on in the second half after all three levels of government started implementing emergency measures to help contain the spread of COVID-19. Then April was one long month of riding the brakes. GTA-wide transactions went from about 9,000 last year to just under 3,000 this year - the lowest April in the last 25 years (as far back as TRREB... [read more]

Every month recently has been a lot different than the prior. In February things were hot. March was a tale of two halves, with the first half continuing hot, and then the brakes coming on in the second half after all three levels of government started implementing COVID-19 measures. Then April was one long month of riding the brakes, with 2,975 GTA sales representing the lowest April in the last 25 years (as far back as TRREB supplies monthly numbers for). May was the start... [read more]

Back in March I wrote a blog post looking at the price gap between detached houses and condo apartments in the 416, noting it had come well off of the spring 2017 highs and was back to 2015 levels (on an absolute dollars basis) or 2013 levels (on a ratio basis). At that time I wrote: It may be a good time for move-up buyer to swing from a condo to a house as the price gap is back to 2015 levels. Then again, there may be more gap shrinking to come. I don't have a crystal ball,... [read more]