![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/toronto-housing-forecast.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo:\u00a0Alexander Hess<\/a>\/Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nIt may be hard to imagine amid the stock market volatility and business shutdowns, but Toronto home prices are expected to rise 7.8 percent by the end of the year over 2019 prices even as the COVID-19-spurred downturn causes home sales to plummet through the spring.<\/p>\n
TD\u2019s Economics team published the forecast earlier this week as part of its update on the evolving impact the pandemic is having on Canada\u2019s housing market. <\/p>\n\n
While TD Economist Rishi Sondhi wrote that the pandemic has put housing activity in a deep freeze \u201cawaiting the COVID-19 storm to pass,\u201d prices in Canada\u2019s largest market are resilient and unlikely to suffer as much as the major declines in home sales may portend.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that the TD team expects prices to rise significantly even as the destructive disease tears through the country. Instead, Sondhi writes that the substantial momentum the Toronto market had coming into 2020 and the gains seen early in the year before the pandemic hit are enough to offset the flattening of home prices that\u2019s anticipated for the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n