House Prices Officially Falling in Halton

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Published February 6, 2018 at 10:11 pm

While it would be highly inaccurate to say that housing is getting more affordable, it’s not wrong to point out that housing prices–particularly low-rise housing prices–have dropped quite a bit m

While it would be highly inaccurate to say that housing is getting more affordable, it’s not wrong to point out that housing prices–particularly low-rise housing prices–have dropped quite a bit month-over-month in Oakville, Burlington, Milton and surrounding areas.

The Toronto Real Estate Board recently announced that GTA realtors reported 4,019 residential transactions through TREB’s MLS system in January 2018–that’s a decrease of 22 per cent compared to a record 5,155 sales reported in January 2017.

TREB says 8,585 homes were listed – a 17.4 per cent increase compared to 7,314 new listings entered around this time last year. That said, TREB says the level of new listings was the second lowest for the month of January in the past 10 years.

“TREB released its outlook for 2018 on January 30. The outlook pointed to a slower start to 2018, especially compared to the record-setting pace experienced a year ago,” says TREB president Tim Syrianos.

“As we move through the year, expect the pace of home sales to pick up, as the psychological impact of the Fair Housing Plan starts to wane and home buyers find their footing relative to the new OSFI-mandated stress test for mortgage approvals through federally regulated lenders.”

As far as prices go, they’re still high–but they’re falling.

TREB says the MLS home price index composite benchmark was up by 5.2 per cent year-over-year and that, surprisingly enough, the growth was driven by the condo market

As far as low-rise homes go, prices are essentially flat compared to last year. The overall average selling price was down by 4.1 per cent year-over-year to hit $736,783, mostly because of a decline in detached house prices.  

“It is not surprising that home prices in some market segments were flat to down in January compared to last year.  At this time last year, we were in the midst of a housing price spike driven by exceptionally low inventory in the marketplace,” says Jason Mercer, TREB’s Director of Market Analysis.

“It is likely that market conditions will support a return to positive price growth for many home types in the second half of 2018.  The condominium apartment segment will be the driver of this price growth.”

As for numbers specific to the entire GTA, a detached house in the 905 currently costs about $879,048 (way down from $910,216 in December 2017). A semi costs about $638,899 (up from $635,999), towns are selling for $588,439 (a little up from $575,894) and condos are costing buyers about $421,927 (down from $430,001 in December). 

It’ll be interesting to see how the numbers change going forward. 

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