The number of sales and listings also down
The Toronto housing market is in a delicate place after a boom last spring followed by a series of measures to cool prices. The cloudy outlook in Canada's biggest city and elsewhere may give the Bank of Canada second thoughts about hiking rates this year.
The latest numbers from the Toronto Real Estate Board show the average price of a detached home down 13.8% y/y in the city and 16.1% in the suburbs. That's worse than in January when they were down 3.9% and 12.0% y/y, respectively but that's largely due to differences in the comp compared to last year. In month-over-month terms, prices improved 1.6%.
Including semi-detached homes, townhomes and condos, the picture improves. In the Greater Toronto Area the average selling price was down $100,000 y/y to $767,818 but that's up from $736,783 last month.
What's more of a concern going forward is a drop in volumes with the number of homes sold down 34.9% y/y with the level of listings up 7.3% y/y.
