New Condo Sales for November 2008

23. December 2008

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Today I want to share with my readers a press release from BILD – Building Industry & Land Development Association. 

They just released their sales statistics for new homes and condos sold in November. For Toronto, 789 high rise condos were sold. At first glance this number sounds pretty high, but when you hear that in November of 2007 1922 new condos were sold in Toronto, this means that sales this November were down 59% versus last November. This is very consistent with the numbers for November’s resale market, where downtown west condo sales were down 61% and downtown east 51%.

We have surpassed the 15,000 mark for condos sold in the GTA for 2008 so far. We will likely end up with about 15,500 condos sold in 2008, which is far off of 2007′s record pace of 22,000, but pretty much dead-on with previous predictions from new development tracking company, Urbanation, who was calling for around 16,000.

Click here for the full press release, or continue reading.

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July Statistics for New Condo Sales

26. August 2008

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When it comes to real estate statistics, I always take everything with a grain of salt. Fact is, most real estate statistics are compiled and released for general media consumption by the real estate industry: Real Estate Boards, CMHC, Real Estate Marketing companies, Realtors, Lenders, etc. They have a vested interest in a robust housing market. Inevitably this bias will shine through.

I was just reading through the latest numbers from BILD (Building Industry and Land Development Association) and if you just read the headline from the press release, you might conclude that everything is rosy in the new homes and condominium market in Toronto.

The headline reads: “Condo Sales Reach New Heights in July”. Now this can be interpreted in several ways and ‘New heights’ could mean just about anything. In this case it is referring to the fact that new home sales in the high-rise category (i.e. condos) were the highest for the month of July when compared to any other month so far this year. However, looking closer at the numbers clearly shows that the sales figures for July for new condo sales are actually down about 21% compared to July of 2007. Overall, new condo sales in the GTA are down about 22% for the YTD for 2008 when compared with 2007.

Also interesting from this press release is that condos appear to be taking up a greater and greater share of the overall market for new homes in the GTA. The reason given is land that land is becoming scarce. Builders are building up rather than out.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an email or leave a comment.

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