Toronto, Vancouver buyers back with a vengeance

October 16, 2019

Greater Toronto and Greater Vancouver homebuyers, which led both the housing sales surge and its decline over the past 18 months, were back with a vengeance in September.
In Greater Toronto they bought 7,825 homes—a pace of around 260 a day—and drove sales 22 per cent higher from the same month a year earlier, reported the Toronto Real Estate Board.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver found that residential home sales totalled 2,333 in September—a 46.3 per cent increase from September 2018 and a 4.6 per cent increase from August 2019. Greater Vancouver sales were a mere 1.7 per cent below the 10-year September sales average.
In Greater Toronto the average home price increased 5.8 per cent to $843,115, while the MLS Home Price Index (HPI) advanced 5.2 per cent from a year earlier. MLS HPI measures the overall values of homes sold.
The composite benchmark price for all residential homes in Metro Vancouver is now $990,600. This represents a 7.3 per cent decrease compared with September 2018 and a 0.3 per cent decrease compared to August 2019.
Greater Toronto housing starts had already picked up, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. The Greater Toronto Area led all metropolitan areas with a seasonally adjusted 3,131 starts in August, though this pace slowed to 2,749 in September.
Starts in the Vancouver region in September were up 70 per cent from a year earlier to 2,126 units, including 403 detached houses.