Toronto

What Have I Done?

Last month, Anthony Wright sold his Mississauga townhouse for more than asking. He still feels badly about it.

Mr. Wright’s agent, Lynne Tham, listed his house on a Monday and accepted offers one week later. Six real estate agents came in and made an impassioned plea for their clients. Mr. Wright, a single father of three girls who deals with stressful sales situations in his professional life, was overwhelmed.

Most of the agents followed protocol and came alone. Except one, who had figured out that his client, a single mother of three, had some things in common with Mr. Wright.

“He actually brought the client in with him, which was so unusual,” says Ms. Tham. He hoped that his client might be able to persuade Mr. Wright to choose her offer.

The Toronto housing market comes to an early boil

Real estate agent Chander Chaddah had some dispiriting advice for his clients recently. The potential buyers wanted to submit an offer on a house for sale near St. Clair and Christie.

The house was tired but respectable and the asking price was about $900,000.

“I told them, ‘there's no point guys – it's going to be a bloodbath',” says Mr. Chaddah, broker at Sutton Group-Associates Realty Inc.

When the bids were tabled, the triumphant buyers had offered $200,000 over asking.

“And it needs another $200,000 in renos,” adds Mr. Chaddah, who says his clients couldn't have come close to competing in that contest.

The early spring market in Toronto has set a blistering pace.

Condo craze continues

Both record highs and near-record lows were recorded in the GTA new-home market in 2011. But what will 2012 bring?

The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and market research firm RealNet Canada met recently to discuss the final GTA market results for 2011, reporting 28,466 new high-rise units sold last year. That makes 2011 a record year for the Toronto condo market, up 23% from 2010. New low-rise sales set records for other reasons: With just 17,460 new-home low-rise sales throughout the GTA — due to a lack of inventory — 2011 was the third-lowest year over the past 12 in that category. RealNet reported 45,926 new houses (worth about $22-billion) sold in 2011 throughout the GTA — the second-highest year ever.

Study seeks neighbourhood factors in cardiac arrest

A new study that tracks the frequency of cardiac arrest in Toronto neighbourhoods has researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital looking at what factors could be at work, from walk-ability and the amount of green space to affluence.

The study mapped the addresses of more than 5,000 participants who had suffered cardiac arrest outside of a hospital. It found that those living in southwest and central Scarborough, western parts of North York and north Etobicoke had the highest rates of cardiac arrest – about 500 per 100,000, over three times higher than the lowest-rate areas: north Scarborough, downtown Toronto, East York and the northeast part of North York.

“One of the things we thought was very surprising about this study was the fact that there are areas that have very, very high [rates of cardiac arrest] adjacent to very, very low,” Katherine Allan, a PhD student at the University of Toronto and the lead investigator of the study, explained.

Sales tower above records

Preliminary results indicate best year yet

If their New Year’s resolutions involved selling more suites, Toronto’s condominium developers got that and more in 2011. While the final sales numbers for the year are still to be determined, the Greater Toronto Area’s condo market has already reached record highs this year, beating out 2007’s former record of approximately 22,500 condo sales.

Ben Myers, executive vice-president and editor of market research firm Urbanation, the Toronto CMA should see high-rise sales of about 26,000 to 27,000 units by year’s end.

But what’s the story behind the numbers? What were the biggest trends that kept the Toronto condo market hopping through 2011?

Are new condos overvalued compared to resale units?

Let’s compare GTA prices for both new and resale condominiums and see what the gap looks like.

Back in January 2004, the price of a new condominium stood at $254,409, according to RealNet’s monthly New High Rise Home index. At the same time Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) figures showed that the median price of a resale condo stood at $185,000. The difference between the new and resale prices was almost $70,000.

Nearly eight years later, as of Sept. 30, 2011, the RealNet index was at a near-record high of $444,378 (up 75 per cent from 2004). The TREB median price of a resale condo stood at $310,000 (up 68 per cent).

This means the price gap between the new and resale condominiums has grown to almost $134,000, nearly double the price difference that existed back in 2004.