Urbanation reports fourth quarter results

Urbanation Inc, the leading source of information and analysis on the Toronto condo market, recently released its fourth quarter market review for 2010.

For the second consecutive year, the Toronto new condominiums market  finished quite strong. With a flurry of sales activity, the fourth quarter resulted in 6,280 new condominums units sold, which is a 2,474 more units then the 2010 third quarter.

 “The Q4-2010 new unit sales were much higher than expected, spurred by tremendous results at a number of new project openings in the City of Toronto. In the end, 2010’s total annual new and resale condominium sales of 37,041 units were just three per cent shy of the historic 2007 record of 38,306 units sold.”Said Urbanation Executive Vice President and Editor Ben Myers.

“Even more impressive than the sales results were the number of construction starts, a Toronto CMA record of 18,221 high-rise condominiums started in 2010, more than twice as many as 2009. There are now 34,548 units under construction in the CMA comprising 132 projects.”

Overall, 2010 witnessed a 20% increase over 2009's 30,939 new condominium units sold, and was 27% over the 2008 sales total of 27,187.

A key to the fourth quarters strength was a combination of developers continuing to restrain pricing at project launches, and investors looking to acquire more investment properties.

 

“Urbanation expects 15,000 to 17,000 new units to launch in 2011, with approximately 16,000 sales, representing a slight drop-off following the ‘boom’  conditions in 2010” said Myers, “Moderate growth is expected in the resale condominium market, and Urbanation is forecasting 17,000 resales in 2011.”