26 March 2018

Meanwhile, market supply is still weak, despite a monthly gain.  There were 12,896 new homes available in February (9,285 condos and 3,611 single-family houses).

“Although single-family new home supply was higher than a year ago, it remains very low historically,” -said Patricia Arsenault, Altus Group’s Executive Vice-President. “In addition to it, we can see a strong lack of supply in case of new single-family homes affordable to a wider range of buyers – only fewer than one in five single-family houses cost less than $750,000 at the end of February.”

Home sales in the GTA went down from a year ago and reached 2,159 transactions.  Single-family home sales fell by 82% to 264, and condo showed a decline by 50% to 1,895. Nevertheless, condo sales still exceeded the 10-year average by 17%, while single-family sales were 79% below.

According to BILD president David Wilkes, strong bureaucracy, out-of-date zoning, and lack of suitable development land are limiting builders in their attempts to provide a larger supply in the GTA.

“That’s the reason we’ll encourage public discussions on ways to solve this issue with policy makers, urban planners, our industry and residents, as the municipal election is coming,” – he added.