March, 2024: Toronto & GTA MLS® home sales: Inventory up; Still "snug"

Greater Toronto, Ontario - Wednesday April 3, 2024 - Jennifer Pearce, Toronto Region Real Estate Board [TRREB] President, released the March, 2024 residential MLS® sales stats via the Board’s monthly publication, “MarketWatch”, showing continued “moderate” performance in terms of sales volume and price strength, generally speaking. While we continue to hear from the Board and from - it seems - the majority of media outlets that there’s a shortage of housing, the inventory figures simply do not reflect that sentiment. Certainly we have an affordability issue - a significant one - but we’re not as convinced as others are that there’s a “supply shortage” - as we’ve asserted here before. At least not in the ownership portion of the home market. Some of the Big Bank economists agree. More detail on the inventory front below - you can draw your own conclusions.

The Big Picture

Overall - meaning all home Classes [e.g. Freehold, Condominium, etc] & Types [e.g. Detached, Townhome, Condo Apartments, etc] - across all of TRREB’s geographical market area - the average selling price of homes came in at $1,121,615 which, at +1.3%, isn’t even covering inflation. The number of sales - “Sales Volume” - reported through the MLS® System was down 4.5% compared to last March. That came to 6,560 last month and 6,868 a year earlier. All figures here are year-over-year comparisons, unless otherwise noted, which generally works best due to the seasonality of the housing market.

Specifics…

Sales of homes in the “Detached” group within Metropolitan Toronto - “The 416” area code, so to speak - were off 2.1% to 647 units selling at an average price of $1,708,437, virtually unchanged at +0.4%. “The 905” area code - TRREB’s market areas surrounding Metro T.O. - had 2,246 sales of Detached homes reported, down 3.3%, at an average of $1,396,674, also “unchanged” [-0.1%].

For more specific updates & a “deeper dive” on Bungalows / “single storey” homes for sale & sold in Toronto, The GTA, and South-Central Ontario, check out our “Bungalow Quick Stats” summary in the Resources area of our website - accessible via the main menu above. That includes “1 Storey Home Specific” information like Sales Volume & Prices [& % List-to-Sale price ratio, Number of Beds & Baths, Property tax, etc etc] by Area along with a map to summarize average prices by area. There are also links to “archives” of our Bungalow-specific information - all broken down by market area for you!

Sales of Condominium Apartments totalled 1,186 in Toronto, down 15.5%, at an average sell price of $729,392 which represents a “negative one-half-of-one-percent” change. In the rest of the market area, 656 sales were posted in March, down 7.5%, averaging $646,989, up 0.3%.

Quotable…

Board Chief Statistical Analyst Jason Mercer:
“The average selling price edged up in comparison to last year as we moved through the first quarter of 2024. Price growth is expected to accelerate during the spring and even more so in the second half of the year, as sales growth catches up with listings growth and sellers’ market conditions start to emerge in many neighbourhoods. Lower borrowing costs in the months ahead will help fuel increased demand for ownership housing.”

Board CEO John DiMichele:
“As demand for ownership and rental housing increases, supply will continue to be top of mind. Governments at all levels must maintain their focus on pursuing innovative solutions to increase the amount and mix of housing supply to improve affordability. This includes removing roadblocks to non-traditional arrangements, such as co-ownership models to benefit home buyers, including first-time buyers and seniors. Encouraging gentle density, including multiplexes, is critical to helping high demand areas such as the Greater Golden Horseshoe to meet housing supply targets.”

Board President Jennifer Pearce:
“We have seen a gradual improvement in market conditions over the past quarter. More buyers have adjusted to the higher interest rate environment. At the same time, homeowners may be anticipating an improvement in market conditions in the spring, which helps explain the marked increase in new listings so far this year. Assuming we benefit from lower borrowing costs in the near future, sales will increase further, new listings will be absorbed, and tighter market conditions will push selling prices higher.”

On the Inventory Front

The number of Total Active Listings as of month-end came to 12,459, a welcome [for those on the home buyer side of the fence] 23.1% jump over last year. “New Listings” - less “indicative” since that figure includes any properties “re-listed” as “New”… a practice that tends to increase or decrease with market fluctuations as we’ve noted many times here before - totalled 13,120 homes available for sale, up 15.1%.

The inventory situation at any given point in time can be illustrated by the “Forward Inventory” figure - simply, Total Active Listings divided by Total Sales volume - to estimate how long it would take to sell all the current inventory if sales volume were to continue at the same rate going forward. That comes to about 1.9 months of inventory available. And that’s still relatively low [e.g. tight inventory] by historical standards.

Not surprisingly, homes took slightly longer to sell this March at 20 days versus 19 - or “5.3% slower” - which remains, by historical standards, still pretty fast. That’s based on the “Listing Days on Market” stat, or “LDOM” as opposed to the “Property Days on Market [“PDOM”]. Here’s the difference:

“LDOM” versus “PDOM” quoted in the charts: Listing Days on Market represents the average number of days homes took to sell during the listing contract term in place when the home actually sold. Property Days on Market represents the number of days the property took to sell including previous listings with the same brokerage. Bottom line: PDOM is actually more accurate in terms of how long homes are taking to sell currently, but it’s actually an “incomplete” statistic in that it doesn’t include the days on the market in cases where a seller re-lists with a different broker.

Ahhh, Spring... 🌷🌱🌞 Thank-you for checking in; hope to see you again soon!

Andrew.

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