For the first time in decades, Toronto real estate is in a buyer’s market.
October marks another month of bad records for Toronto real estate. With sales down 5.8 per cent since the same month last year, the region has posted one of the lowest numbers of October home sales to date. This suppressed sales figure is a clear sign that the Toronto real estate market is in a state of recession.
More inventory, fewer sales
Alongside these record-low sales, we’re seeing inventory grow substantially. Monthly new listings are up 38 per cent compared to October of last year, which is in line with the long-term average.
Breaking out above the long-term average, active listings are 50.1 per cent higher this October than in October of 2022, signalling a market where supply is not being absorbed, so sellers are leaving listings in the market. Should this inventory continue to pile up, the market could sway further in favour of buyers over the winter months.
Combining this supply trend with falling demand brings us to a buyer’s market territory based on both months of inventory and sales-to-new-listings ratio.
Stable prices for now – but what’s next?
House prices have been relatively stable and hovering above the long-term trendline. This indicates the buyers’ market hasn’t necessarily resulted in buyers dictating the price discovery of Toronto real estate heading into the slower winter months.
Time will tell whether or not we return to the long-term trendline, but it would not be unreasonable to expect a market to trade sideways for the foreseeable future, to catch that trendline in several years’ time. After all, the last major housing cycle in Canadian real estate in the 1990s culminated in a sideways market for 2-3 years once the “bottom” was in.
Charts source: Chartography.ca
Daniel Foch is the Chief Real Estate Officer at Valery.ca, and Host of Canada’s #1 real estate podcast. As co-founder of The Habistat, the onboard data science platform for TRREB & Proptx, he helped the real estate industry to become more transparent, using real-time housing market data to inform decision making for key stakeholders. With over 15 years of experience in the real estate industry, Daniel has advised a broad spectrum of real estate market participants, from 3 levels of government to some of Canada’s largest developers.
Daniel is a trusted voice in the Canadian real estate market, regularly contributing to media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CBC, Bloomberg, and The Globe and Mail. His expertise and balanced insights have earned him a dedicated audience of over 100,000 real estate investors across multiple social media platforms, where he shares primary research and market analysis.
A buyers market but where are the Buyers?
As a 38 year realtor in the London, St. Thomas Real Estate Board I can tell you prices here hardly changed between 1990 and 2001. However with everyone in the world STILL wanting to move here I don’t expect that long a flat period. We’ll see.
That’s an amazing flat period – what caused it? and could you say following that there was an up market correction? Is it possible – there’s now a down correction? Thankyou for the insights
There are few reasons to believe the prices will increase soon after this flat period
– immigration and increase of demand
– low supply of new housing
– cost of building new housing is high because of land cost, wage and raw material cost
– not much lands in GTA
-Historical housing price trend
– high interest rate has stopped the economy growth.