The GTA real estate market remains as hot as ever, with the region setting a new May, 2016 sales record with more than 12,000 homes sold, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board.
Figures released Friday show a 10.6 per cent increase in sales over the same period last year, despite the fact that the number of new listings was down by more than six per cent.
“Whether we’re talking about existing homeowners or people looking to purchase for the first time, there is no shortage of buyers in the marketplace today,” TREB president Mark McLean said in a news release.
Robust home sales in the city may not exactly be news, he added, but it does “mask the larger story in the GTA: the shortage of listings, which has resulted in strong upward pressure on home prices.”
According to the board, the average selling price for all home types combined was up by 15.7 per cent year-over-year in May. Low-rise homes remain in particularly short supply, which likely contributed to them experiencing the biggest price growth.
1 year, $100K jump
Overall, TREB said, the MLS Home Price Index composite benchmark was up by 15 per cent year-over-year in May.
“Widespread competition between buyers of singles, semis and townhouses across the GTA has underpinned the robust annual rates of price growth experienced so far this year,” TREB’s director of market analysis, Jason Mercer, said in the release.
“With this said, however, it is also important to understand that tighter market conditions for condominium apartments have resulted in price growth well above the rate of inflation in this market segment, as well.”
Overall, 12,870 homes were sold in the GTA in May, with an average price of $751,908. For the same month last year, there were 11,640 homes sold at an average price of $649,648.
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