It looks like it’s going to be a good spring for builders and buyers
By Lucas on Feb 17, 2017
With interest rates remaining low, Trimart Research Corporation believes that spring 2017 will show strong sales numbers for the new low-rise market across the Total Market Area (TMA).
The most recent information from Statistics Canada says that overall employment went up 53,700 net new jobs in December 2016, and that’s following a 10,700 gain in November. Ontario employment saw 9,100 net new jobs in December, following an increase of 18,900 in November.
A recent article in The Toronto Star says that population is surging in Toronto city centres. In some cases, the population nearly doubled between 2011 and 2016. In the 905 area, the largest growth was seen in Oakville and a few areas of Brampton more than doubled in population in the last five years. In Milton, the population increased 30.5% with a reported 110,000 people living there as of 2016.
Reading these figures, we can’t help but refer to Trimart’s top 10 list of the cities with the most new low-rise sales last year. Brampton came in first with 4,336 new low-rise sales. Milton came in second with 1,588 sales, and Oakville followed closely with 1,385.
In Trimart’s most recent report, they unveiled the year-end new low-rise sales by region. The West Region of the TMA (Acton, Brampton, Burlington, Georgetown, Milton, Mississauga, Oakville, Waterdown) had the most sales clearly since the top three cities are in this region. There were nearly 9,000 sales in the West.
Via Tridel
The North Region followed closely with nearly 8,000 sales. The North may not have as many big hitters as the West, but it has the most towns and cities than any other region in the TMA, including Alliston, Angus, Aurora, Barrie, Bolton, Bradford, King City, Kleinburg, Maple, Markham, Mt. Albert, Newmarket, Orangeville, Richmond Hill, Stouffville, Thornhill, Tottenham, Unionville, and Woodbridge.
Richmond Hill in particular will probably see a lot of sales growth in 2017 with new openings from Aspen Ridge Homes, CountryWide Homes, Conservatory Group and Regal Crest Homes at Observatory Hill. There is also Richlands, a new site by Arista Homes, Deco Homes, Fieldgate Homes, and OPUS Homes, which will be launching this year.
The Central Region had the least new low-rise sales last year, coming in under 1,000. This makes sense because the Central Region accounts for just downtown Toronto and Scarborough. With inventory levels falling and prices soaring, many buyers have been pushed out of Toronto’s low-rise market, and there’s no land to build detached home communities. We hear about new urban townhome communities popping up every now and then, but it doesn’t match the quantity out in the 905.
Despite rising prices across the TMA, buyers seem confident in the market, so we anticipate a successful spring 2017 for builders and buyers.
