While the temperature drops, the housing market continues to gain strength. In September, home sales in the GTA were up 22% over the same month in 2018 with 7,825 total sales. In September 2018, there were 6,414 total sales. While this represents a strong increase, it’s still far off the record of 9,800 sales back in September 2016. Keep in mind that 2016 was strongest year in the recent real estate boom. 

While sales in the GTA were up 22% in September, that increase pales in comparison to the Vancouver market which was up a whopping 46.3% for the same month.

These numbers include both houses and condos.

This is definitely some strong year over year growth, however, the market overall is not quite as hot as you may think.

The average sale price in September increased to $843,115, which is up 5.8% over last year. Back in 2016, the average sale price for the year was $729,837, so homes have seen an average increase of 15.52% over the past three years. This represents an average increase of 5.17% per year.

To put things into perspective, the average increase in the 21 year period from 1997 to 2017, was 7.07%. This number is fairly high as it was boosted by the strong real estate market from 2014-2017 where the average increase was 12.04% per year with the strongest year being 2016, with a whopping increase of 17.31% over the previous year.

If we remove 2014-2017 from the average, it then drops to 5.89% from 1997 through 2013. When you compare this with the average increase over the past 3 years of 5.17%, we’re close to average market performance.

Mortgage rates are expected to stay low, which will continue to fuel the real estate market throughout 2020. I’ll be talking more about this in detail in an upcoming blog, so stay tuned!

Paul Meredith is the author of the Amazon #1 best selling book, Beat the Bank – How to Win The Mortgage Game in Canada, and has ranked as one of the top 75 mortgage brokers in Canada since 2016. He was a finalist for Mortgage Broker of the Year in 2018, and can be seen as the exclusive mortgage broker on season two of TV’s Top Million Dollar Agent.