real estate

Real Estate Market Forecast 2009

September 22nd, 2009

A friend of mine forwarded this information to me the other day and I found it to be quite useful. Having been in the real estate field for sometime now, we did see something phenominal happen these last couple of months. For those who invested or just window shopping for properties during the beginning of the year, we all witnessed a quiet moment of silence in the market between January to March. Then suddenly there was a crazy demand for both residential homes and condominiums all over the GTA. From overbidding to multiple offers all across the region, people were beginning to wonder what was going on. Even I was thinking the same thing. We are now midway through September and the ball game hasn’t stopped rollin’ yet! There is no recession for those who believe one is amongst us. And if there is, it is not going to hit us anytime soon.

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CHART OF THE DAY

Canadians searching for clues on the health of the residential housing market should take a close look at an industry statistic known as the sales-to-listings ratio.

To arrive at the ratio, take the number of homes sold in a month and divide it by the number of active listings for that same month. Real estate agents consider it a neutral market when the ratio is between 24 per cent and 28 per cent. It’s a buyer’s market below 24 per cent and a seller’s market above 28 per cent.

In Greater Toronto, for instance, the ratio soared to 58.8 per cent in June – a V-shaped rebound after bottoming in December and January at slightly over 13 per cent. Thomas Cook, a Toronto real estate agent who tracks the numbers in his region every month, says bidding wars dried up early this year, but have roared back. Potential sellers still think there’s a recession in the housing market, limiting the number of listings, he says. The Greater Toronto Area had 8,035 sales and 15,682 listings in August, or a ratio of 51.2 per cent, compared with 6,318 sales and 25,076 listings in the same month in 2008, or a ratio of 25.2 per cent. Other major markets bouncing back include Vancouver and Ottawa, Mr. Cook says.
-B.Jang, Toronto Dominion, Sept 2009-