Data from the Altus Group showed that sales of new homes in the Greater Toronto Area contracted by a significant 44% annually in July.
Altus Group executive VP (data solutions) Patricia Arsenault attributed the slowdown to the trend of the market’s summer performance historically being weaker than spring.
“This July was no exception, although minimal new project launches in July, along with declining affordability of new condominium apartments due to recent price escalation, amplified the June-to-July decline in sales somewhat this year,” Arsenault explained.
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Last month’s slowdown also marked a 55% decline from the 10-year average, according to Altus.
Closed sales deals of new single-family homes – including detached, linked and semi-detached houses and townhouses (excluding stacked) – increased by 85% from July 2017. This was still 77% below the 10-year average, however.
Meanwhile, sales activity in the condo segment (covering low-, medium-, and high-rises) as well as stacked townhouses and loft units shrank by 52% year-over-year and 40% from the 10-year average.
As for benchmark prices, GTA’s new single-family homes stood at $1,142,574 last month. This represented an almost flat 0.85% increase from June and 13.2% up from July 2017.
New condominium apartments were at the $774,759 benchmark, essentially unchanged from June but up 16.5% from July last year.
Ephraim is currently a journalist at Mortgage Broker News, Real Estate Professional and Canadian Real Estate Wealth.
Ephraim is a highly accomplished news reporter whose work has been published across North America and the Asia Pacific region. Before joining Key Media, Ephraim spent eight years working as a journalist with Reuters TV. His areas of expertise include real estate, mortgage, and finance.
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