![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/new-toronto-condo-sales.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPhoto: James Bombales<\/em><\/p>\n Condos are the entryway to property ownership for many in the pricey Toronto housing market \u2014 but sales of new units are crumbling with prices now higher than a growing number of would-be buyers can afford to pay for a starter home.<\/p>\n A total of 772 condo units, including homes in low-, mid- and hi-rise buildings as well as townhouses and lofts, sold across the GTA this February, down a whopping 58 percent from a year before and 51 percent off the 10-year average.<\/p>\n Most of these sales took place in Toronto proper, where buyers snapped up 533 units, well short of the 1,065 that sold the previous February.<\/p>\n\n This is all according to the most recent numbers from real estate data firm Altus Group, who provide monthly updates for industry lobbyists, the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD).<\/p>\n \u201cSofter new condominium apartment sales in February can, at least in part, be attributed to the rapid increase in prices in the past two years, which has priced many would-be buyers out of the market,\u201d explains Patricia Arsenault, executive vice president of data solutions at Altus Group, in BILD\u2019s latest market report news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n In February, the benchmark asking price of a new condo was $792,709, an increase of 8.6 percent from the same month in 2018. That\u2019s above what homebuyers are paying on average for units on the resale market, which has seen a similar rate of price growth and a slowdown in sales. According to the Toronto Real Estate Board, the average sale price of a condo last month was $552,161, up 6.1 percent annually. Meantime, resale transactions fell 5.7 percent on a year-over-year basis.<\/p>\n