Greater Toronto home sales, prices climbed in October from a year ago

TORONTO – Housing sales across the Greater Toronto Area rose last month, compared with a year ago, as prices also climbed, helped by strong sales in the condo and higher-density low-rise markets.

The Toronto Real Estate Board says there were 7,492 sales in October 2018, up six per cent versus a year ago. On a preliminary seasonally adjusted basis, sales were down one per cent compared to September 2018.

Meanwhile, the average sale price was $807,340 in October, up 3.5 per cent from $780,400 year-over-year. Adjusted seasonally, the average selling price last month was up one per cent compared with September.

The MLS HPI composite benchmark price jumped by 2.6 per cent compared to October 2017.

The average price for a detached home in Toronto was $1.31 million in October. In the rest of the GTA, the average detached home price was $914,179.

Condominium prices across the Greater Toronto Area climbed the most out of all property types year over year, according to TREB.

The average price of a condominium in Toronto last month was $603,153, up 8.6 per cent compared to a year earlier. In the rest of the GTA, the average condo price was $461,013, up 5.9 per cent year over year. For all of the GTA, condo prices rose 7.5 per cent in October from a year ago.

The board, which represents more than 52,000 realtors, says sales and price growth came as the number of new listings fell compared with a year ago.

Last month, there were 14,431 new listings, down 2.7 per cent versus October 2017.

“Annual sales growth has outstripped annual growth in new listings for the last five months, underpinning the fact that listings supply remains an issue in the Greater Toronto Area,” said Jason Mercer, the board’s director of market analysis.

Realtor Tom Storey called the data “encouraging,” especially amid some recently introduced measures aimed at cooling down the real estate market including a new mortgage stress test and a 15 per cent foreign buyer tax in Ontario.

“What we’ve been seeing, especially for the city of Toronto, our population has kept the demand so strong that those factors haven’t had as much of a significant impact as they could’ve in other markets,” said Storey, of Royal LePage Signature Realty.

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Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version had an inaccurate headline.