While it wasn’t a chilly autumn for housing markets in the greater Toronto or
greater Vancouver areas, with both posting gain in prices and sales activity, it
wasn’t overly hot either.
In Toronto and its suburbs, the average sale price in November rose just over
11%, to 538,881 Canadian dollars ($504,098) from the same month last year, according
to the Greater Toronto Area Realtors group. On the surface that looks like a
big jump, but it partly reflects the sales mix.
In the latest period, there was a higher concentration of detached,
single-family houses sold, which generally cost more than condominium units. In
the year-ago period, sales of those higher-end homes had stalled, in part
because of a new set of mortgage restrictions that effectively required bigger
downpayments for homes that cost more than C$1 million.
The MLS Home Price Index Composite Benchmark, which levels out the housing
mix, reveals a more modest, 5.7% price increase among like-for-like domiciles in
Toronto. And while that’s strong, it’s not unreasonably so, says Robert Kavcic,
senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.
In general, policymakers look for prices nationally to grow at or slightly
below the rate of incomes, he said, which is currently about 4% across
Canada.
So, while Toronto’s home prices are running slightly ahead of that rate,
Vancouver’s are running well below.
http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2013/12/04/canadas-big-housing-markets-avoid-autumn-chill/
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