The Bibby Group | June 2019 Newsletter

After witnessing a slower than normal start to the first quarter of 2019, the second quarter appears to be demonstrating a positive trend towards high consumer confidence in home ownership. According to a recent Ipsos study, households downtown continue to see home ownership as a quality long-term investment as population growth from immigration remains strong and our regional economy continues to create jobs across a diversity of sectors. That being said, actual sales volume is still at a ten year low as buyers have had to come to terms with the OSFI mortgage stress test and the fact that new listings continue to be constrained relative to the amount of actual sales.

The number of new listings coming to market are only up slightly compared to last year, meaning conditions are still generally favoring sellers. Year-over-year prices are up in the downtown condominium market by approximately 8%. Should this trend continue where we see growth in sales surpass the growth of new listings, price growth will only accelerate. A more sustainable and diverse supply of housing needs to continue to reach the market as many households are not comfortable listing their properties for sale as they feel that there are no housing options available to better meet their needs within the core.

While our media has put Toronto’s housing market under a magnifying glass for years and buyers and sellers are curious as to how the rest of the year will unfold, I suspect the remainder of our summer will show low to moderate growth and turnover, which is typical for the season. Stand-out properties will sell quickly—as they do in any market or time of year—and our fall will indeed be extremely interesting to track. We will report back in August!

Have a great summer!

Sincerely,

Christopher Bibby