Urbanation’s Review of the Condo Market’s First Quarter
By Lucas on May 06, 2013
Urbanation, the leading source of high-rise condominium stats, released their look at the first quarter of 2013.
The results were not surprising. A total of 2,728 new market condominiums were sold in the first quarter, which is the lowest number of sales since the third quarter of 2009.
“The lower volumes seen in the first quarter were not unexpected given how strong the market was throughout 2011 and the first part of 2012. The industry has been cautious in bringing new units to market as sales centre traffic has slowed,” said Shaun Hildebrand, Urbanation’s Senior Vice President.
As Hildebrand commented, these numbers were expected. Given the amount of units that have sold in the past two years, the market was due for a slow down. Developers pulled back on high potential releases in the second half of 2012 and first quarter of 2013 in order to sell off remaining units.
“The market appears well positioned for an improvement through the rest of 2013. More competitive pricing and the upcoming release of some highly anticipated projects in the second quarter should attract a good amount of attention. Activity will remain below recent peaks, but should rise up to a level more consistent with the historical trend this year. An early indicator may be found in the resale numbers, which typically lead the new market during periods of recovery,” added Hildebrand.
Listed below are some other interesting stats provided by Urbanation:
- Average Price index grew by 2.5 percent annually in the first quarter to $533 psf (per square foot), a slower pace than the 6.4 percent record over the past 10 years
-The Number of Unsold Units increased during the first quarter to 18,845, however the share of active units that are sold held steady at 79 percent, slightly lower than the five year average of 80 percent
-Resale Condominium Sales increased by 9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012 to 3,204 units
-Resale Prices slipped by 0.5 percent to $394 psf, mainly due to the fact that active listings increased by 25 percent during the first quarter
- Only 7 percent of the 4,859 new high-rise condominium registrations were listed for resale
We thank our friends over at Urbanation for these statistics, as they always give a great overview of the marketplace. Visit Urbanation.com for more information on them, or follow them on Twitter at @Urbanation.
