Cooling Toronto housing market a return to normal, say realtors
Buyers now have more choice, more time and even a little more negotiating power.
Excerpted from The Toronto Star
That faint hissing sound — music to the ears of Toronto home buyers — could be the air escaping the region’s housing market.
It could also be the barely concealed frustration of sellers, who listed their homes this spring expecting to attract cut-throat bids from desperate, over-extended buyers. Instead they are seeing fewer showings and fewer offers.
Toronto area home prices dipped about 7 per cent in May compared to April but remained about 15 per cent higher year over year averaging $863,910.
Even as the market has soared, there were some month-to-month price declines, said Jason Mercer, director of market analysis for the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB), which released its month-end May statistics on Monday.
December’s average home price was $46,212 lower than November’s $776,684 but it is “somewhat unusual” in the peak spring season, he said.
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The last year-over-year price decline was 2012, said Mercer.
May’s cool down came with a 43 per cent increase in active listings.
But there’s no indication that a bubble has burst, he said. That would require some dramatic change in the economic environment — a real rise in lending rates or a shift in regional employment.
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