GTA High-Rise Sector: Best Q1 in 10 Years
By Lucas on Apr 17, 2014
View from King Blue
The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) released its Q1-2014 report, highlighting new home sales in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Remember how a few real estate pundits and news outlets predicted a decline in new home sales for 2014? Well, RealNet Canada’s Q1-2014 statistics tell a different story. The first three months of 2014 actually made up the strongest Q1 in the last decade! Sales across the GTA have shown year-over-year increases for eight consecutive months.
The high-rise sector for Q1 was up 68% compared to the same period last year. BILD states that this is proof that the consumer market has renewed their confidence in the high-rise sector.
"New-home buyers in the GTA have benefited from a significant increase in new high-rise project launches so far this year," said BILD President and CEO Bryan Tuckey. "These projects have presented consumers with plenty of options when it comes to finding their new home."
The low-rise sector also performed remarkably well, with a 56% increase in sales compared to March 2013, and a 51% increase compared to the first three months of last year.
The RealNet New Home Price Index showed an increase of 3% (compared to March 2013) in the low-rise sector, with the average price coming in at $657,961. The average price of a high-rise unit went up only 2% to $436,898
"The building industry is committed to building homes people can afford to purchase. Our members have been heavily focusing on assisting purchasers with deposit and rental guarantee programs," explained Tuckey.
For March 2014, the best performing region for the low-rise sector was Peel with 585 sales, while Toronto had the least sales with just 30. Toronto more than made up for their lack of low-rise sales with an incredible 2,109 high-rise sales! The region with the least amount of high-rise sales was Durham with only four.
