January represents the 9th month running with increased home sales in the GTA, 4,581 home sold through TRREB’s MLS® System in January 2020 – up by 15.4 per cent compared to January 2019. The MLS HPI Composite Benchmark price was up by 8.7 per cent compared to January 2019 – the highest annual rate of growth for the Benchmark since October 2017. Detached homes have lead the way up 23% from last January. Condos seem to be the most competitive in terms of aggressive buyers since many are lower priced, they have had a 15% appreciation year over year.
One new trend is that we have seen is a very big increase in rental listings. They were up an outstanding 37% from last year January and this seems to be lead by Freehold homes coming on the market for lease. This could be partially because of the new AirBnB rules coming into affect & because we are seeing more and more homeowners keep their existing residence to rent it while buying a second home.
MOI – Months of Inventory is very low, just over 1 month worth of inventory for Toronto which is critically low (a balanced market is 5-6 months). We still have plenty of buyers and demand from investors so this is really pushing prices up throughout the GTA. Just in the last 2 weeks Ive seen homes get 8, 14, 15 & 19 offers. These are homes from Etobicoke to Riverdale from Condo Townhomes to Freehold’s selling from $700K to 1.4Million.
The bidding wars are not uncommon this time of year because most want to list in March, April and into spring but it does seem more competitive than the last 2 years. Things ussually calm as inventory rises in March, April & May but I suspect the overall demand will continue at least throughout the first half of the year. I am hopping to see things slow as I much prefer to see a calmer market where we have 4 -6 months worth of inventory, buyers can find what they need and sellers can still sell fairly easily, it just makes everyone less anxious and gives buyers and sellers time to make a decision.
As always feel free to send me any questions, comments or concerns.