THE FORTUNE TELLER.
Looking Ahead to the Market in 2019 Sales reported through TREB’s MLS® System in 2019 will amount to 83,000 under the baseline forecast. This outlook assumes that borrowing costs, particularly the five-year fixed mortgage rate, will be lower on average compared to 2018.
Over the same period, it is expected that an increasing number of home buyers will move from the sidelines as the effect of the OSFI-mandated stress test will be mitigated by purchasing a different, more affordable type of home potentially in a location different from originally planned.
New listings entered into TREB’s MLS® System are expected to remain flat, hovering around the 155,000 mark – a level that has become the norm since the recession. The relationship between sales and listings will represent enough competition between buyers for the average home price to rise in the mid-single digits to a baseline of $820,000 – almost reaching the 2017 peak. Price increases will be driven by average condominium apartment price growth in the high single digits.
CREATING MORE “MISSING MIDDLE” HOUSING
There’s no question that building more housing is key to alleviating affordability pressures in Toronto and across the GTA.What is
Missing middle housing includes housing unit types that fall between a single-detached or semi-detached house and a high-rise apartment building (defined as five or more storeys). These types include ownership and rental townhouses, duplexes, laneway homes and low-rise apartments (triplexes, quadraplexes, stacked townhouses and garden apartments). A primary goal of significantly enhancing the supply of missing middle housing in Toronto is to provide more affordable, family-friendly housing given the stratospheric prices of single-detached and semidetached houses.
CONSTRUCTING TRANSIT-SUPPORTIVE DEVELOPMENT
What can housing built within a ten-minute walk of a transit station do to housing affordability?
THE RENTAL MARKET
The rental market in the GTA has experienced low vacancies, strong competition between renters and strong average rent growth over the past few years, most notably in 2017 and 2018. This has largely been the result of a growing mismatch between demand and supply of rental units.
NEW HOMES AND RESIDENTIAL LAND
When looking at the New Homes market, it’s clear that 2018 was a year of adjustment after strong growth in the preceding two years. As with the resale market, a resurgence of buyers and builders returned to the new home market in the latter half of 2018. Residential land sales also cooled slightly in 2018 after a strong couple of years. Looking ahead, both the new homes and residential land sectors are expected to have a slightly stronger 2019.
