George Carras, President of RealNet Canada Inc., was bang-on a month ago when he said the sales statistics for the GTA high-rise housing market showed the month of September ending on a decidedly upbeat note, pointing to a very healthy final quarter of 2010.
Carras’ prescience was confirmed this week with the news that developers sold 3,159 new condo suites in the GTA in October. That’s the best October ever, and the second best month all-time for high-rise sales, with the record being set back in June, 2007. And based on the street talk in the industry, November is shaping up to be a lot like October.
With an astonishing seven out of every ten new homes sold in October being a high-rise condominium suite, high-rise condo sales were up 27 per cent over October 2009, and are running 52.6 per cent ahead of the January-October 2009 period.
On a year-to-date basis, homebuyers have signed on the dotted line for more than 17,000 condo suites, representing more than half (56 per cent) of the 30,914 new homes sold so far this year.
Although the City of Toronto continues to account for the bulk of all condo sales (76 per cent in October), the biggest spikes in activity were in the Regions of Peel (Mississauga) and York (Markham and Vaughan), which were up 164 and 138 per cent respectively. ‘Condomonium’ is starting to spread to the suburbs and it’s a trend which will continue to grow.
The strength of the high-rise condominium market is attributable to the $75,000 differential between the RealNet high-rise price index, which sits at $424,327, and the low-rise price index which rose through the half million dollar price threshold for the first time ever, hitting $500,532 in October.
