Outside of the condo market, there's increasingly little room for price negotiations in good ole T.O., with homes selling at 100% or more of the asking price within three weeks, according to new data.
The Toronto Real Estate Board released its mid-month resale housing figures, which also showed prices were up in all sectors from a year ago, and especially in single family homes.
“Strong competition between home buyers in many parts of the GTA has resulted in sellers realizing their asking price in a short period of time,” said Jason Mercer, senior manager or market analysis for TREB. “The fact that homes are selling for 100% of the asking price, on average, suggests that sellers are very much in tune with the current market situation and know the fair market value of their home.”
It also suggests buyers have little chance of scoring a deal below those increasing values. In February, Toronto homes sold for an average of 99% of the asking price.
But there is one exception, namely condo apartments. The average price in mid-March of $336,397 is 4% higher than a year ago, but it is 1.4% lower than the average condo apartment price weeks earlier at the end of February.
“I’m especially seeing it at the high-end, with developers offering (very high) Realtor commissions for properties that have sat on the market for quite a while,” Wojciech Pianka, a Toronto mortgage agent with Mortgage Alliance, said. “Some of those condos are also selling for less now than they did pre-construction, meaning investors are having to sell for less than they paid.”
Analysts point out that It can be difficult to read too much into trends over just a couple of weeks, but there is another sign pointing to a softening condo market.
While the average home listed in Toronto in February sold in 24 days, it was taking condos 29 days on average to sell.
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