What goes down can go up!
Toronto’s benchmark home price rose for the first time in 11 months after the Bank of Canada paused its campaign of interest rate hikes.
The price of a home in Canada’s largest city rose 1.1% to $1.09 million in February and new home listings also increased by over 8% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis.
According to data released Friday by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board. February’s gain is the first month-over-month price increase since the central bank started raising borrowing costs in March 2022.
The Canadian housing market slowed last year as the central bank embarked on its round of interest rate hikes, pressuring home sales and fueling a drop in prices.
In January, the Bank of Canada raised its benchmark rate for the eighth time as policymakers signaled an intent to pause and assess the impact on the economy.
There were some signs of buyer interest returning last month, with the number of sales in February rising 8.5% from a month earlier to 5,224 transactions on a seasonally adjusted basis. That’s the highest number since August, although it’s still only about half of the transactions in February 2022.
New listings, meanwhile, were down 41% from the same month a year earlier, the real estate board data show.
“Increased demand will run up against a constrained supply of listings and lead to increased competition between buyers,” Jason Mercer, the real estate board’s chief market analyst, said in a statement. “This will eventually lead to renewed price growth in many segments of the market.
Ardi Honarmand, a platinum real estate agent and Founder of Condos of the Six said “the fundamentals of the Canadian market are strong and Toronto is a highly desirable destination. So the long-term trend is positive.”
Rishabh Gandhi, another platinum realtor in Canada’s fastest-growing Remax Brokerage also noted that “immigration will remain a key growth driver to the Canadian housing market. Both buyers and investors should approach the market strategically.”
