Housing prices continue to grow as supply trends downwards

GREATER TORONTO, Dec. 22, 2016 /CNW/ - Lack of new housing supply continues to escalate prices and average prices for both new single-family detached houses and high-rise condos in the GTA reached unprecedented levels in November, the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) announced today.

The number of new homes available for purchase in the GTA continues to be around all-time lows. At the end of November, there were 15,184 new homes in builders' inventories, only 84 more than in August which reported the lowest level on record. Housing supply has plummeted over the past decade. In November 2006 there were 31,150 new homes available for sale according to Altus Group, BILD's official source for new home market intelligence.

Only 13 percent of the available inventory at the end of last month was low-rise homes with just 2,036 units and of those 789 were detached single-family houses. Available high-rise supply was also down in November, falling to 13,148 units.

"The low inventory story is not only about low-rise – high-rise inventories have been on a downward path over the past 3 years," said Patricia Arsenault, Executive Vice President of Research Consulting Services at Altus Data Solutions. "Total available inventory in November was the lowest November level we have seen since we first started to track this data in 2000."

Low levels of inventory resulted in record-setting prices for detached homes and high-rise condominiums in November. The average price of new condos in the GTA reached $493,137, a 10 per cent increase from a year ago. Condo unit size continued to increase with the average in November at 820 square feet.

Meanwhile, the average price of new detached homes in the GTA hit $1,230,961 in November, up 27 per cent from last year. Since the beginning of the year, new detached single-family homes in the GTA have gone up by more than $258,000.  

Overall, average prices for new low-rise homes, which includes detached and semi-detached houses as well as townhomes, increased 20 per cent over the past 12 months. In November, a buyer needed $977,890 to buy the average low-rise home.

"The industry is building to government policy and building far fewer low-rise homes, especially detached single-family homes, but demand has not dropped with the supply so prices continue to increase," said Michelle Noble, Vice President of Communications, Marketing and Media Relations at BILD.

So far this year there were 8,843 detached homes sold in the GTA, which is 16 per cent fewer than in 2015. At this time 10 years ago, 12,273 detached homes were sold across the region.

Overall there have been 43,651 new homes sold in 2016 with high-rise accounting for 60 per cent or 26,299 homes and low-rise totalling 17,352 homes.

A detailed table of new-home sales in the GTA is available below.

November New-Home Sales by Municipality:

 Source: Altus Group

With more than 1,450 members, BILD, formed through the merger of the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association and Urban Development Institute/Ontario, is the voice of the land development, home building and professional renovation industry in the Greater Toronto Area.  BILD is proudly affiliated with the Ontario and Canadian Home Builders' Associations.

These results were previously released under the REALNET® Canada name, whose independent and comprehensive data, analyses and insights on the commercial real estate investment and residential development markets is collected and compiled using a nationally consistent research process established in 1995. Going forward they will be released by Altus Group, powered by a proprietary data platform led by Altus Data Solutions Canada. This team is the formal unification of leading Canadian real estate data companies previously acquired by Altus Group, including REALNET® Canada.

A statistical backgrounder is available for viewing.

SOURCE Building Industry and Land Development Association

For further information: or to schedule an interview, contact Andrei Zaretski, Manager of Marketing and Media Relations at 416-391-3450 or 416-843-4898 or azaretski@bildgta.ca

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