July 2017 housing sales took a PLUNGE but so what?! and how does that affect you?
As I always say, we can’t sell from an empty cart! And empty the city is, when it comes to freehold inventory…detached OR semi-detached! In fact if it weren’t for the Condo market, we’d be out of business. It’s the 905 area of the GTA that is holding up the stats by a margin of about 3 to 1!!
The days of those “lottery prices” sellers were enjoying back in March/April are over. And that’s a good thing. Whatever is available to sell, is being priced more reasonably, and they are selling at or close to the selling price (on average, at 98% of the asking price). There ARE still homes in coveted areas that are receiving multiple bids, because there is still more demand than supply, but the I MUST HAVE THIS HOUSE OR I WILL DIE approach from buyers has softened and cooler heads (and prices) prevail.
Here are the basic facts for July 2017: 
*sales DOWN by 40%
*average sale prices UP by about 6% ($746.2K) compared to last July (we like this) Re prices: If you don’t have single homes supply (the most expensive type of housing) AND if luxury homes over $2ML are not listing at this time in the summer, then of course the majority of sales that took place in July were lower priced housing and condos. 31% of total sales were condos.
*New Listings only up by 5% but total listings are up by 65% (CONDOS people!) so there is more supply than last year..
*and speaking again of CONDOS…in the city, sales were down by 25% compared to last July, but prices SOARED by 25%! Average sale price in the city is now a whopping $533K
*Sales of homes over $2ML were down by 47% compared to last month (to my point about parking those listings until the fall)
*Due to more choice in the market, buyers are taking more time to make their purchasing decisions and so days on market are higher in July 2017 than they were last year…taking 21 days on average as opposed to 16 days to sell last July.
So the summer market is proceeding as expected and we anticipate a quiet August as well. Once September rolls in, we expect to see the normal “uptick” in listings and sales as sellers and buyers get re-engaged.