Toronto home sales continued to soar in July amid tight housing supply.
Sales in Canada’s biggest city increased by 24.3% to 8,595 from the same period last year, the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) reported on Tuesday. On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales rose by 5.1% from June, the biggest increase since the end of 2017, before stricter mortgage-lending rules were introduced.
Toronto sales have been rebounding all summer from a slump earlier this year amid tighter borrowing conditions that came into play in 2018. Meanwhile, housing supply is still limited, driving prices higher for the most segments, according to a Bloomberg report.
New listings rose by 3.7% to 14,393 in July compared with last year, while active listings were down by 9.1%.
The average price rose by 3.2% from last year to $806,755. Detached homes saw a sales boost last month, but average prices for the segment continued to remain down in various suburban communities, TREB said.
“As more and more households come to terms with the stress test and move back into the market in the coming months and years, they could suffer from a chronically under-supplied marketplace and an acceleration of home price growth to unsustainable levels,” said John DiMichele, TREB’s CEO.
