Low availability levels in Toronto’s detached, semi-detached, and townhouse segments have contributed to a growing number of the city’s residents deciding to stay put.
According to an analysis of Census data by the Ryerson University Centre for Urban Research and Land Development, Toronto’s housing activity due to address changes has fallen noticeably by 6.3% from 2006 to 2016.
“In the last decade compared with the early 2000s we were building a lot more low-density housing, particularly single-detached housing. In 2002 we built 22,000 units and in 2016, the peak in the last 10 years, we built 11,000 units,” analysis co-author Frank Clayton told the Toronto Star.
Among Toronto’s home owners, moves fell by 7.6 % during that 10-year period. This is in comparison to the 3.9% reduction in moves among tenants.
The next largest drops in moving activity were markedly below Toronto’s levels. Calgary saw a 5.7% decline, while Vancouver had 3.8% less moves, followed by Ottawa, Montreal, and Edmonton.
Consistently elevated price levels might have contributed to the trend, as well. The latest edition of the Teranet-National Bank of Canada House Price Index showed that last month, Toronto home prices went up by 1.33% from May, and rose by 2.81% from June 2018.
The Index further reported that Toronto’s residential price growth in June represented almost half of the market’s total increase so far in 2019.
At the same time, Better Dwelling noted in its analysis of the figures that the June reading constituted the third smallest annual increase for that month. In particular, the June 2019 level was 2.13% below the all-time high seen in July 2017.
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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