When the US real estate bubble burst some two years ago, innumerable Canadian property owners, potential buyers and professionals started to ask: ”What will happen to the real estate market in Toronto or Canada in the future?”
The worries were based on two basic ideas. The first one is based on the mighty connection of the real estate market in Canada (and its whole economical situation) with the one in the USA. Furthermore, we could see from the way the Canadian property market was progressing in 2006 and mainly in 2007, that a analogical bubble could show up here too. Now let’s look at things almost a year later.
The way how things were developing between 2008 and 2009 didn’t really appear too satisfying, which only reinforced all the negative forecasts and only a few people still managed to keep their hopeful viewpoint. The sales figures from each month showed a great decline, which peaked at -47% in comparison to January 2008. Now we can say that Canada has been stricken by the “depression panic” from fall 2008. The real estate market almost collapsed, because most Canadians were reluctant about making any big financial decisions. Under these circumstances, some “experts” prognosed Canada facing similar collapse as in the USA. Nonetheless, the reality seems to be quite far from these forecasts. Let me present some of the 2009 statistics.
Number of sales and year-to-year change
These are the most important and closely observed indicators. The winter slowdown of the market is quite obvious when we focus on these indicators. Nonetheless, June sales scored more than four times higher than December ones. May was the first month in this period when we noticed sales growth (compared to the same month in previous year) and June’s +27% indicated the Toronto property market is back on the horse.
Days on market
Whereas the previous figures draw the volume of the market, another key number shows its speed and freshness. It’s the second side of the same coin – the overall volume of sales can’t tell you whether your home will be stuck on the market or not. During the hardest times in January, it took just 14 days more to sell your property. Confronted with South Florida or Detroit, where days on market value reached 120-150 days, our slowdown was ridiculous.
Active listings flow change
Indicates the property market’s atmosphere. If the number of new listings is rising, it usually tells us that property owners are worried that their property value would decrease and they want to save their investment. The opposite situation means that the dominating opinion is that this is a good time for buying property. It can forecast the future of other attributes – we saw positive change in listings flow after January as a market turn signal.
Average price
This is the number that my real estate clients usually consider as the most important. Usually, one of the largest items on people’s property list is their house, which means that every market change can result in the owner getting thousands of dollars more or less. It was not until April 2009 that the price drop from the previous autumn was overcome.
Why the results are so good?! Even now, bad news about the state of our economy are coming out almost daily. So how can we explain the fact that the real estate market has improved so quickly? We can find two basic factors:
1. Failed expectations
Many Canadians observed the collapse of US real estate market and assumed the same scenario at home. But we have to remember that the crucial problem of United States was in the subprime sector. Few defaults at the start created a chain reaction. In the beginning, the prices dropped. Therefore, toxic mortgages could not be covered by foreclosures and short sales. Logically, the banks had to throw more foreclosured houses on the market, which resulted in the prices dropping even lower. I dare to say that Canada has a very healthy financial system, which in cooperation with very small subprime sector where there are only a few foreclosures occuring makes our real estate market a secure one. As soon as property owners remembered this, they calmed down.
2. Stabilized economy and buying opportunities
Have a short look at inflation, unemployment, GDP predictions and interest rate numbers. These are especially important for real estate (look at real estate prices explanation). We can clearly see from these statistics that even though our economy is slowed and stagnating, it is still quite far from a collapse – although of course the figures could look even better. All these arguments also helped to stop the winter real estate fuss.
Conclusion and the future
We can say that in addition to sustaining the winter depression, Toronto real estate market has pulled together very quickly and now it is increasing again. We can even call the condo resale market as hot now. Low interest rates and good prices after “one year break” present huge opportunity especially to first time buyers. There are also some great buildings available for investors, because the prices haven’t got to the previous level yet. Sellers can relax too – the market is quick and their property will be sold probably within a month for a decent price. But we have to bear in mind that there is still some uncertainty pertaining and that the labor market is not quite up to its previous speed. If we take all this into account, we can conclude that in the next few years, a bubble is unlikely to create and that prices will probably grow just slowly. June’s 27% was extraordinary, but this means the market is trying to catch the lost months and we can expect stabilization soon. Even in wild times, Toronto real estate market forms a solid base for the economy of the whole Ontario country.
