New condo and single-family home sales in the Greater Toronto Area were down on a yearly basis in April, even as prices continued to trend up.
New insights released by the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) state that the GTA new home market “showed signs of slowing down,” in April from 2021’s “exceptionally strong pace.” A total of 3,645 new units were sold that month, a 29 per cent drop compared to April 2021, but still six per cent above the region’s 10-year average.
Year-to-date, there have been 14,784 new homes sold in 2022. So far this year, 2,665 new single-family homes have been sold (down 58 per cent from the previous year) and 12,119 new condo transactions (a 22 per cent increase year-over-year).
New condo apartments, which encompasses units in low-, medium- and high-rise buildings, stacked townhouses and loft units, accounted for 3,074 of April’s monthly sales, down 24 per cent from the same month in 2021. However, new condo sales were still 40 per cent above the 10-year average that month, marking the fourth-highest number of condo apartment sales for April since 2000. The majority of new condo apartment sales took place in Toronto during April, where 1,620 units exchanged hands.
In April, 571 new single-family homes were sold, a 47 per cent drop year-over-year and 54 per cent below the 10-year average. New single-family residences include detached, linked and semi-detached houses and townhouses, but exclude stacked townhouses. York logged the majority of April’s new single-family home sales, where 251 residences were traded.
Edward Jegg, research manager at Altus Analytics at Altus Group, noted in the monthly BILD report that headwinds of growing interest rates and inflation are starting to “act as a drag after an exceptional 16 months.”
The price of both a new construction single-family home and condo apartment continued to rise in April. The benchmark price for new single-family homes hit $1,787,186 that month, up 28.1 per cent over the last 12 months. Meanwhile, the benchmark for a new condo rose to $1,189,134, a 12.3 per cent increase over the last year.
Compared to the previous month, new home remaining inventory grew to 9,327 units — 7,936 condominium apartment units and 1,391 single family lots — thanks to new project openings in April. Remaining inventory is defined as units in pre-construction projects, developments currently under construction and completed buildings.
“The unpredictability in construction costs, the supply chain disruptions and the strikes our industry is currently experiencing are expected to impact housing supply in the GTA in the coming months,” said Dave Wilkes, BILD’s president and CEO, in the monthly report. “Combined with the factors affecting the larger economy, we are likely to see some volatility in the housing market in the months ahead.”
