Yawn... March, 2016: Another record for Toronto & GTA MLS® home sales…

April 5, 2016 - MLS® home sales statistics were released today by the Toronto Real Estate Board for March, 2016, showing record numbers for both the month of March and for Q1 2016 overall.

The numbers were strong across the board with, once again, the only “minus signs" being in front of the “Days on Market” figure - meaning homes sold faster than they did a year ago - and the “Total Active Listings” figure - reflecting, to nobody’s surprise, the continuation of a Seller’s market characterized by very tight inventory levels [+ strong demand].

Once again, one of the smallest gains was in the number of sales of Detached homes in the 416, up just 3.2% - no doubt a direct result of tight inventory and high prices. Coincidentally, the largest gain was in the number of sales of Condo Apartments outside Metropolitan Toronto [+36.1%].

There's a lot of pent up demand, even at these price levels, but we have a "gridlock" wherein people can't find the house they're looking to move to and, as a result, aren’t putting their present houses up for sale.

Jason Mercer, TREB’s Director of Market Analysis, put it this way: “Demand was clearly not an issue in the first three months of 2016, regardless of the housing market segment being considered. The supply of listings, however, continued to aggravate many would-be home buyers. We could have experienced even stronger sales growth were it not for the constrained supply of listings, especially in the low-rise market segments. The resulting strong competition between buyers has underpinned the double-digit rates of price growth experienced so far this year.”

Looking specifically at the numbers, 1,075 detached homes sold in Metro Toronto, up 3.2%, at an average price of $1,174,358, up 12.4%. In the balance of the Greater Toronto Area, 3,879 Detached homes changed hands, up 14.2% at an average price of $837,217, up 18.2%. All figures are quoted on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted.

Condominium Apartment sales were very strong across the entire TREB market area, though price increases were far more muted for the Condo Apartment group, probably due to less constrained supply. In Metro Toronto 1,808 Condo Apartments changed hands, up 20.7%, at an average price of $416,251 up 4.3%. In the balance of the GTA, 833 changed hands up 36.1% as noted above, at an average price of $330,865, up 6.6%.

Overall - including all TREB areas and all property types - there were 10,326 homes sold in March on the Toronto MLS® system, up 16.2% from last year’s 8,887. The overall average selling price was $688,181, up 12.1% from last March’s $613,815.

Regarding that imbalance in inventory versus pent up demand, the Indicated Forward Inventory [Available Listings versus Monthly Sales] stands at a meagre 1.17 months. Total active listings as of March 31 were 12,132, down 20.7%.

Houses sold "20% faster" this March versus last at 16 days on the market on average versus 20 last year.

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