Toronto home prices extend slide
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It’s been a quiet summer so far for the home market in the Greater Toronto Area. The latest data from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) on Thursday showed home sales fell 47.4 per cent year-over-year in July. Sales activity was down 24.1% month-on-month. Seasonally adjusted, TRREB reported that sales fell 0.3% from June to July. With some home buyers sitting on the sidelines, it appears that some would-be sellers are choosing not to list their properties. New listings fell 4.1% in July from a year earlier. TRREB said it expects new listings to continue to follow sales trends into next year. Amid less competition among buyers, the average sale price of a property fell from a February peak to $1,074,754 last month, led by the single-family home segment. “With significant increases in lending rates in a short period of time, there has been a change in consumer sentiment, not market fundamentals,” Kevin Crigger, president of TRREB, said in a statement. He called on the federal government to implement measures to improve affordability for buyers in the face of rising borrowing costs and high inflation. He also blamed recent increases in council development charges. “Toronto City Council should consider the recently approved 46% increase in development fees, bringing the average cost of all government fees and charges to a staggering $350,000+ for each new single-family home and over $180,000 for a new condominium,” he said. Crigger. . “We commend the city for exempting development charges for up to three additional units on individual lots that will encourage more missing mid-multiplex housing, but this exemption alone is not enough.”