As the calendar flips for the last time this year and we are less than a month shy of Christmas, it feels like we are all gearing up for the holiday festivities. Agents are busy sending out cards and calendars to clients and preparing to take some well needed time off. The offices are slowing down, listings are dropping off, but buyers haven’t completely disappeared. Real estate economists’ view of the market’s performance in 2019 is that it was a solid year. The year played out in dramatic fashion. We had a sluggish start in the beginning of the year but by spring and into the summer months, fortunes reversed and the market overall has been on something of a hot streak. And to brighten the picture even further, the housing outlook for 2020 is resoundingly positive!
HO HO HO here comes Santa! The annual Santa Clause parade comes to town on Sunday and if that doesn’t signal the start of winter then this week’s blast of early snow sure did. Despite the early onset of snow and temperature drop there is no sign that the real estate market is slipping into hibernation yet. A shortage of listings has been the problem for most of the year but when we ask around the office if agents have buyers they are working with everyone puts their hand up. We know there are many frustrated buyers out there, but we would encourage them to all keep looking. If you are thinking of putting your buying intentions on hold you might pay the ultimate price when prices escalate in the Spring...just like they did last year.
The Toronto Real Estate Board released the market stats for the month of October and all we can say is we are UP! October continued the string of strong performances. Beginning in the spring the Toronto and GTA market have shown month per month growth in sales and sale prices. The average sale price for the City of Toronto is $925,498 up 6.4% from a year ago. The number of sales has also increased by 8.7%. Still the growing concern is the lack of inventory with active listings down almost 6% compared to last year resulting in tighter market conditions and accelerating price growth.
Now that Halloween is behind us and the time has come to turn back the clocks this weekend, it’s the world of marketing and retail sales that will keep us focused on the changing seasons. If you haven’t been to a big box store lately you may not have noticed that it is suddenly Christmas everywhere you look. Unfortunately, the real estate market does not flip seasons as easily as your local retailer and the indicators we look for are harder to spot. This fall has been a particularly quirky market. Some areas are hotter than average and setting records and some neighbourhoods feel like they are in a cool chill. We don’t know why this is happening making some of us think that the market will end early and has others thinking it will go to the last day of the year. We will keep on working and l e t you know how our seasonal transition fairs.