If you’ve followed my Insight Articles for a while now, you’ll know that whenever a very popular media headline catches my attention, I’ll always read the whole article (can’t say that for most people). However, 95% of the time, I’ll give the article a thumbs down for not providing the full picture of what is happening. Instead, the article is often just a catchy headline and nothing more. Once again, I’m seeing this headlining trend with the numbers that came in for the month of August. I reviewed what the numbers REALLY looked like when they came out in August and although sales are up, the picture painted isn’t as pretty as what the media outlets are writing about.
In case you missed it, here is my review of the August 2019 Market Watch.
Fall Fuel – Regardless, these headlines are going to add fuel to the upcoming Fall Market. Overall, sales are still below the 10-year average despite increasing over 20%. Yes, it sounds like an oxymoron, but it is true. Take a look at the Market Watch video above if that sounds weird to you.
Neighbourhood Numbers – However, here are some even weirder things that I wanted to show you about the detached market that you really ought to know. Remember how I was saying that every micro market (condos vs towns vs semis vs detached) has been operating at a different level in 2019, and that you should call us for expert advise (rather than just any random Realtor)? Well when it comes to detached homes, it gets even weirder because you must seek neighbourhood specific Realtors. Every neighbourhood is behaving differently this year. Even I was surprised with a few neighbourhoods when I saw the charts below.
The map on the top indicates the number of sales. Red is good (sales increasing), while the blue indicates areas that are seeing a decline in sales.
You can see that most neighbourhoods are red, which means that there has been over 10% increase in sales in most areas. However, that is compared to last year, which lines up with the 24% increase in sales from 2018 that everyone has been reporting on.
However, if you look at the map on the bottom, the price change year to date has been depicted. You can see that most are blue, which represents negative growth.
WEIRD RIGHT!? Sales are up, but prices are down in the detached market. Here’s the kicker – most areas are in the negative in the 416, but the houses south of Bloor from the downtown core to Dufferin and east to Coxwell are up 15%. These houses all have bidding wars due to the lack of supply. In addition, these houses are not what I would call “affordable” starting from the $1.5M+ price tag. Here’s a visual depiction of the areas that I’m talking about.
The other strong neighbourhood is C11, which is the area between the DVP and Sunnybrook Hospital between Bayview & Don Mills (as seen below).
There are many “affluent” neighbourhoods in this area and they all experienced over 11% increase (coming up to the $2M average price tag). Again, this is not what I would deem as the “affordable” part of the market.
Buy, Buy, Buy – I truly believe that most people, who are able to purchase these properties, are seeing the value in buying them now when the prices are just at that inflection point of going up. If you want to be in a good neighbourhood close to downtown, this is your chance now. The buyer psychology is getting stronger. If you’re looking for a home in these neighbourhoods, reach out to me at Zhen@PrimePropertiesTO.com because you’ll need a Realtor who can speak today’s real estate market language.
The other areas that are not nearly as weird are the yellow areas on the map (see below):
The Others – These are your northwest Toronto properties and a region of Scarborough. Prices haven’t gone down in these neighbourhoods because you can still get a detached home in Toronto for around $1M. These areas will slowly undergo a gentrification process, especially the northwest area of Toronto as builders have all picked up land in these areas to build condos. Expect to see many projects coming out in this area in the next year or two.
The Wrap – As you can see the detached market is very different in each neighbourhood. In next week’s Insight Article, I’ll break down the 905 in this exact manner.
Until Next Time, Happy Real Estate-ing,
Zhen
