The GTA home market was up 211 per cent in February 2020 with 4,665 total new home sales — the highest number of new homes sold in February since 2002, according to, according to Altus Group, BILD’s official source for new home market intelligence.

The number of sales also saw a 57 per cent increase above the 10-year average, and was the strongest February since 2004 for sales of new single-family homes, including detached, linked, and semi-detached houses and townhouses (excluding stacked townhouses).

With 2,247 new single-family homes sold, sales were up 228 per cent from last February and 44 per cent above the 10-year average.

Sales of new condominium apartments, including units in low, medium and high-rise buildings, stacked townhouses and loft units, at 2,418 units sold, were up 197 per cent from February 2019 and 48 per cent above the 10-year average. It was the second strongest February of the past 40 years for new condominium apartment sales, after the record high of February 2017.

“Prior to the uncertainty due to the COVID-19 situation, the new home sector in the GTA was on track for a strong sales performance in 2020,” said Patricia Arsenault, Altus Group’s Executive Vice-President, Data Solutions. “Low mortgage rates were triggering the release of pent-up demand that had been building on the back of strong employment and population growth, which helped boost February sales.”

In February, the benchmark price for new condo apartments was $961,268, which was up 21.3 per cent over the last 12 months, and the benchmark price for new single-family homes was $1,097,987, which was down 2.2 per cent over the last 12 months.

Total new home remaining inventory at the end of February was 17,199 units, representing about five months of inventory at the pace of sales in the past 12 months, well below the longer-term average of about eight months. Remaining inventory includes units in preconstruction projects, in projects currently under construction, and in completed buildings.

“Following on a month of strong new home sales in February, our industry and our customers are facing a time of challenges and uncertainty due to COVID-19,” said David Wilkes, BILD President & CEO. “We are working diligently to coordinate responses with provincial and municipal authorities, protect workers and customers and ensure that we continue to fulfil our responsibilities to new home buyers. One of those responsibilities is building enough homes to top up depleted inventory and ensure our region’s new home supply keeps up with demand.”

Despite a strong start to the spring housing market in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in February, evolving conditions around the COVID-19 pandemic have had a profound short term impact on housing activity in the region. Among a slew of measures being announced at all three levels of government – including a number of initiatives in direct support of homeowners and renters – Ontario declared a state of emergency across the province on March 17 to help contain and minimize the spread of the virus.

As a result, housing market activity began to slow in reaction to these escalating measures and buyers and sellers began holding off on home sales and purchases amid uncertain health and economic circumstances. Using data from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB), Zoocasa reviewed how real estate market activity evolved in tandem with these emergency measures being put into effect.

According to our calculations, the sales-to-new-listings ratio (SNLR) – a measure of market competition calculated by dividing the number of sales by the number of new listings – dropped to 38 per cent for detached and semi-detached homes in the GTA between March 17-23; compared to 53 per cent for the week prior to the emergency declaration. For condo apartments and condo townhouses, the SNLR dropped from 55 per cent to 40 per cent for the same time period. When the SNLR is between 40% – 60%, this indicates a balanced market, while above and below that threshold reveals sellers’ and buyers’ markets, respectively. As such, these numbers represent a visible shift in market conditions over a very short period of time.

Here’s a closer look at how GTA market conditions have evolved as we enter our third week under a state of emergency in Ontario.

One Week After: GTA House Market is Now a Buyers’ Market
With increased social distancing measures in place following the state of emergency declaration, there was a resulting 14 per cent dip in new listings for detached and semi-detached houses between March 17-23, compared to one week earlier. Sales were down 38 per cent from 1,203 to 748 sales on a week-over-week basis.

We saw a similar trend of fewer sales and listings unfolding within the condo market, which was enough to nudge the market slightly closer to buyers’ market conditions. For the week following the announcement, sales dropped 35 per cent for the same period, from 724 to 482, and there were 10 per cent fewer listings for condo apartments and townhouses compared to the week prior, dropping from 1,312 to 1,177, based on the listing entry date.

Two Weeks After: GTA Condo Market Borders on Being a Buyers’ Market
While real estate fundamentals indicate that housing demand will bounce back over the long term in major urban centres like Toronto, COVID-19 has caused an immediate slowdown in housing market activity and across the economy more broadly. Just two weeks following the announcement of a state of emergency, there was a noticeably visible impact on the house and condo market in the GTA.

Stronger health advisories coupled with directive recommendations to cease all in-person interactions from real estate bodies including the Ontario Real Estate Association, encouraged a 53 per cent drop in detached and semi-detached sales for the period between March 17-30. There were 1,153 sales during this period, compared to 2,435 between March 3-16. New listings dipped from 4,503 to 3,140, representing a 30 per cent drop.

In the condo market, sales dropped a whopping 53 per cent from 1,541 to 729, and new listings were down 26 per cent from 2,490 during the week of March 3-16 to 1,842 in the two weeks following the announcement. This was a swift shift from sellers’ market conditions between March 3-16 when the SNLR was 62 per cent, to market conditions bordering those of a buyers’ market just two weeks later where the SNLR was 40 per cent.

Take a look at our infographic below for a snapshot of GTA sales and new listings activity one and two weeks following the state of emergency declaration from the Province of Ontario:

If you were to make a list of groups that will never have a fan club, Ontario’s Landlord Tenant Board would likely be one of the first to get jotted down. Investors have long been calling for improvements to the LTB’s methods, particularly the Board’s slow and costly approach to resolving issues with problematic tenants.

Those calls have only grown more strident as the COVID-19 crisis has destabilized the Canadian rental market and put thousands of Canadians behind on their monthly rental obligations, compounding whatever tenant issues landlords were already dealing with.

“Landlords cannot apply to the LTB as they are currently not hearing eviction orders,” says Kayla Andrade, founder and president of Ontario Landlors Watch. “If there was a tenant currently abusing the system and not paying rent prior to all of this, then the shutdown is going to be delaying it even further. Also, if a tenant was trying to fight for safe housing and an urgent repair was required, this too has been stalled. The concern goes both ways.”

There is concern among some investors that statements made by government and banking officials about deferred mortgages and halted evictions are being exploited by tenants to justify rent strikes, even though no official rent-relief policy has been put in place.

“It has also caused tenants to believe that since mortgages are being deferred that they do not have to pay rent, regardless of their circumstances. Some are also expecting rents owing in this case to be waived and not caught up in the future,” Andrade says, adding that a backlog of cases already before the Board prior to the COVID-19 pandemic means “tenants who decide to abuse the current situation could essentially live rent free during the pandemic and possibly many more months thereafter.”

Real estate investors are encouraged to chase predictable, reliable returns. Chaos, like what has been kicked into gear by the coronavirus, is bad for business. That is why Andrade is proposing a government-managed “rent bank” that would make up the difference between what landlords are due every month and what they actually receive.

“A rent bank will protect important parts of our housing stock, today and for the future,” she says. “It will ensure that housing providers can maintain their rental properties in good repair and provide a safe home for tenants through this difficult time for everyone.” Andrade says the proposed rent bank should remain available post-pandemic, as unpaid rent will remain a problem whether or not there’s a catastrophic backdrop to play out in front of.

Government coffers are going to be drained, strained and pained by the cascading effects of the coronavirus, so additional financial help for people who were experiencing positive cash flow on investment properties may not be priority number one for any level of government. But any improvements to the LTB will be welcome.

Everyone’s spring plans are up in the air at the moment, and it’s no different for Toronto’s luxury condominium market.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has cast a long shadow over Canada’s real estate markets for 2020. Yet, despite all the economic uncertainty, sales for luxury condos in the GTA remained strong in the first 15 days of March even as concerns over the rapidly spreading coronavirus began to escalate, according to one of the country’s largest brokerages.

In a recently published report, Sotheby’s International Realty Canada voiced its confidence in the resilience of the GTA in the face of the coronavirus crisis. The brokerage’s Top-Tier Spring Outlook Report for 2020 shared not only its current findings on regional luxury condo sales activity, but also what we might expect from the market post-pandemic.

“Uniquely positioned as the country’s economic epicentre as well as its leading destination for immigration, migration, and global investment interest, the region and its top-tier real estate market are expected to remain resilient in the long-term, with any pullbacks in spring activity to be temporary,” Sotheby’s stated in the report.

From March 1st to 15th, momentum from January and February activity carried through. In the GTA, 82 condo units priced over $1 million sold, a 46 percent year-over-year jump. Toronto did slightly better in the first half of March, with sales in the $1 million-plus category up 70 percent annually to 75 units sold. The GTA and the City of Toronto shared the exact same results in the $4 million category during this period — one condo sold, an improvement from the zero sales in this category during the same period in 2019.

Luxury condo sales momentum that began at the start of the new year is credited for healthy activity during the first half of March. During the first two months of 2020, top-tier condo sales in the GTA delivered a strong performance, with sales over $1 million increasing 117 percent year-over-year, with 314 units sold. Comparably, condo sales rose 112 percent in the City of Toronto annually, for 284 units sold. Six condo units priced over $4 million sold in the same time period, an increase from the one unit sold in 2019.

“While uncertainty lies ahead, housing will remain essential, activity will continue and the long-term prospects for Canadian real estate are solid,” said Don Kottick, President and CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada in the report.

Property sales in 30 tier-1 and tier-2 cities triple in March from February in sign coronavirus crisis is abating
Sizzling sales in pockets of market unlikely to compensate for expected decline in nationwide sales this year, analysts say

China’s private housing market is springing back to life as more sales offices reopened across the country following a nationwide shutdown, saving home builders from a deeper financial slump this year. Transactions in at least eight large cities – Shenzhen, Chengdu, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Huaian, Yangzhou, Jiaxing, Shantou – indicated buyers have returned in recent weeks, with volume surpassing the average levels in the final quarter of 2019, according to China Real Estate Information Corporation (CRIC). The rebound comes as a relief to the industry after measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak kept buyers away and almost froze the market. Developers have since offered discounts to boost sales and avert a liquidity crunch as factories resumed production and lockdowns eased in signs the health crisis is abating. “Prices of some new projects were capped [by the government], lower than the market price, so some projects are popular” with the buyers, said Yang Hongxu, deputy head of E-house China Research and Development Institute. “Restrictions on housing and land prices also created some room for arbitrage, so people are rushing to buy houses and property developers scramble to buy land.”

Home sales in 30 large and medium-sized cities, a bellwether for the nationwide trend, reached 8.6 million sq m (92.6 million sq ft) this month, more than treble the 2.33 million sq m recorded in February, according to Wind Information. In Suzhou, a tier-2 city close to Shanghai, some 175,800 sq m of homes were sold in the week ended March 8, according to CRIC. That is higher than the 65,000 sq m weekly average in February and 132,000 weekly average in January.

Guangdong-based Country Garden said 97 per cent of its 1,327 sales centres, except in Hubei province, have reopened for business. Almost all of its 2,951 development sites have also resumed construction work, it added.

In Shenzhen, Hong Kong-based developer New World Development sold 70 flats in its Bayhouse at Prince Bay project from January 1 to March 15, fetching 21 million yuan to 51 million yuan each. Buyers also snapped up 288 smaller flats at a project in Baoan district in Shenzhen, according to CRIC data.

“Shenzhen is a young city where housing supply is limited and demand for housing is stronger” than many urban cities, said Zhang Yiping, analyst at China Merchants Securities. “Except for Shenzhen, many tier-1 cities will not see a big jump in sales [for the rest of 2020] under tight property policies,” he said. The pockets of sizzling sales in some cities are unlikely to make up for the lost ground this year, with property consultancy Knight Frank predicting a 30 to 40 per cent slide in unit sales in tier-1 cities in the first half. In the week to March 22, sales in tier-1 and tier-2 cities were still 50 per cent and 24 per cent below their year-ago levels, according to the consultancy, despite developers resorting to price discounting and a record number of supporting policies. “The sales outlook for the whole year depends on development of the coronavirus condition,” said Martin Wong, Greater China research and consultancy associate director at Knight Frank. “It appears that control of the epidemic has improved in China. But imported infections could increase as people travel to China when other parts of the world are facing the pandemic.” Sales in even lower-tiered locations won’t rebound as quickly, according to Xie Rui, senior property analyst at Golden Credit Rating. Property sales in terms of [square metres] across the nation are expected to show a 13.8 per cent drop in the first half, and 4.5 per cent for the full year, assuming the pandemic comes under control by April domestically, and no significant state policies to stimulate demand, Xie added.

Ontarians struggling to make ends meet during the novel coronavirus pandemic have received some respite for their housing concerns.

Last week, Premier Doug Ford suspended all evictions and the federal government has announced residents may defer their mortgage payments for additional financial assistance.

In turn, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) announced it’s expanding the Insured Mortgage Purchase Program to $150 billion of insured mortgage pools to further support the Canadian economy during this unprecedented time.

The taxpayer-funded agency, which supports the vast majority of Canada’s housing market by insuring the loans that finance them, previously announced it was willing to take up to $50 billion worth of loans off of banks’ books. However, CMHC said Thursday its mortgage-buying program is being expanded to $150 billion. This move will ensure banks have more money for loans amid the COVID-19 crisis.

“This action will expand the stable funding available to banks and mortgage lenders in order to ensure continued lending to Canadian consumers and businesses,” the CMHC said in a statement.

According to the CMHC, this support to the financial sector builds on previous measures announced by the federal government to provide significant and effective action to support Canadian individuals and businesses facing financial hardship as a result of the economic impacts of the global COVID-19 outbreak.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues and more Canadians require mortgage payment relief from borrowers, Canada’s top banks continue to be flooded with requests. According to Bloomberg, 213,000 Canadians have requested mortgage deferrals as of Thursday.

Evan Siddall, president and CEO of CMHC, is now calling on mortgage holders to stop overloading the system to ensure that relief goes to those who need it most.

“Banks and mortgage lenders are struggling to keep up,” said Siddall. “And if you have a paycheque and can afford it, please pay your bills.”