Toronto Home Prices Up 8% in March
Toronto Real Estate Board President Dianne Usher announced that Greater Toronto Area Realtors reported strong year-over-year increases in Toronto MLS home sales and the average selling price in March 2014. Home ownership affordability, backstopped by low borrowing costs, continued to be a key factor underlying this growth.
A total of 8,081 sales were reported in March 2014 – up by 7.2 per cent in comparison to March 2013. Sales growth was much stronger in March compared to the first two months of the first quarter. Sales for Q1 as a whole were up by three per cent compared to the first three months of 2013.
“Sales activity in the GTA accelerated last month. Compared to last year, a greater number of buyers found affordable home ownership options, as evidenced by sales growth for all major home types. Against this backdrop, however, overall inventory at the end of March remained lower than last year. This means competition between buyers increased, which is why the average selling price continued to climb,” said Ms. Usher.
The average selling price for March 2014 sales was $557,684 – an increase of almost eight per cent compared to the average reported for March 2013. The average price for the first quarter of 2014 was up by 8.5 per cent year-over-year.
“With borrowing costs remaining low, and in fact declining, strong home ownership demand will continue to butt up against a constrained supply of listings. Strong price growth will be the result for the remainder of 2014. If the pace of price growth experienced in the first quarter is sustained, TREB may revise its outlook for the average selling price,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis.
See the Toronto Real Estate Board's Market Watch Report for March »
April 3, 2014 in Real Estate Sold Report, Toronto Real Estate Board, Toronto Real Estate Market, Toronto Real Estate Update | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sold Listings and Prices on Toronto MLS
Everyone is curious about real estate prices. Specifically everyone wants to know the selling price of the home up the street. Home owners, sellers and buyers are all interested in this information because home sales define the value of the other homes in the neighbourhood -- home values are usually based on comparison with recent sale prices of similar homes in the area.
Lets examine at how a buyer or seller can find out how much a real estate listing (home, house, or condo) sold for. The first information that you need to know is whether the property (or properties) were sold on MLS in Canada or Privately (for sale by owner) or through a builder.
Land Registry Offices:
All properties Sold Prices in Ontario (or other provinces) are registered in the Land Registry Database. This is the largest database of home prices and these databases include MLS sales, Private Real Estate Sales and Builder Sales. The Land Registry databases also include all title transfers (for example between spouses in a divorces) so they contains a lot more information than selling prices between buyers and sellers. Homes are only registered here on the date that they are transferred (move-in/out date). This differs from real estate agents who record the sold price when the deal is negotiated.
The local land registry offices are located here. The land registry usually charges a fee per sold price. They also typically do not provide a list of all the recent sold homes. You need to specifically choose one home and ask for that information.
MLS Sold Home Prices:
The second largest database would be the local Real Estate MLS database owned by the local real estate board(s). For example, the Toronto Real Estate Board has all the sold prices of homes sold by real estate agents in the Greater Toronto Area. If a home was did not involve real estate agents (FSBO, Builder), it would not be listed in the Toronto Real Estate Boards database. Other real estate boards (Niagara, Hamilton, London, Kitchener, Windosor…) would all keep a database of all their MLS home sales. If a member of the public wants to get access to MLS sold prices they would need to contact a real estate agent. The question is whether a real estate agent will provide this information without being under contract with the person. Real Estate Agents are able to access Sold Home Prices very quickly and are able to generate reports that list all the recent homes sold in a neighbourhood. Real Estate Agents will usually show home owners the sold properties of homes in their neighbourhood when they complete a comparative market analysis.
Properties Sold on the Toronto MLS® system:
You can subscribe to a report showing detailed information on real estate sales in the GTA, including selling prices, delivered daily to your email inbox.
Here's where to subscribe to the Homes Sold and Condos Sold reports.
December 31, 2012 in Real Estate Sold Report | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
