The Greater Toronto Area’s detached home market is making a comeback!
By Newinhomes on Aug 14, 2019
For the longest time, detached homes were the most popular housing type. Even when prices were skyrocketing, detached home sales in the resale market were still higher than townhomes and semis. Now that price growth has eased up, it looks like even more attention is shifting back to the detached home market.
A new study from RE/MAX examined 65 Toronto Real Estate Board districts and discovered that detached home sales saw an uptick in 88% of the markets, and the average price increased in over half of them in the first six months of the year.
"Detached housing is finally back on track, with year-to-date sales almost 17% ahead of last year's levels, signaling a return to more normal levels of homebuying activity," says Christopher Alexander, Executive Vice President and Regional Director, RE/MAX of Ontario-Atlantic Canada. "Market share is also climbing, with detached homes now representing 45.7% of all home sales in the Greater Toronto Area, up from 43.1% one year ago."
In the 905 area, 100% of the areas saw an increase in detached home sales compared to a year ago, and 43% of the markets saw average prices increase. In the 416, just 20 of the 35 districts saw a bump up in year-over-year sales, while 57% of the markets increased in average price.
The greatest price growth was in the North Riverdale, South Riverdale, Blake-Jones, Greenwood-Coxwell area, where the average price of a detached home increased 15.2% to $1,378,987. Second place was taken by the Trinity-Bellwoods, Palmerston-Little Italy, Little Portugal, Dufferin Grove, Kensington-Chinatown, Niagara area, increasing 12.8% to $1,953,511. Coming in third with an 11.2% increase in average price was Leaside, Thorncliffe Park, with an average of $2,193,747.
All three of these markets were seller’s markets in June 2019, according to TREB. Under half of the markets in the 416 are considered buyer’s markets. RE/MAX does note that in areas north of Bloor there is more room for negotiations when buying a detached home.
While the greatest price growth was in areas where detached homes were already well over $1 million, most of the highest selling markets were areas where the average price was lower than $1 million. Scarborough's L'Amoreaux, Tam O'Shanter-Sullivan, Steeles area had the largest year-over-year increase in detached home sales, jumping 76.2% with 148 units sold in the first half of the year.
"With recovery well underway in the detached housing segment, the residential real estate market is starting to fire on all cylinders," says Alexander. "The possibility of more relaxed mortgage rules down the road – in conjunction with today's low interest rate environment – may serve to spark up the GTA housing market yet again."
