Corinne McCabe , Broker

You may have read media reports on a call to ban bully (pre-emptive) offers, which means eliminating offers that result in homes being sold ahead of the time and date specified on the listing. These bidding wars seem to be common in Toronto and other competitive urban markets where inventory is tight. In some neighbourhoods it feels like the days of 2016. We understand it might not seem fair to some, but it would be a tricky area for the government to attempt to legislate, because it could be a conflict situation with seller clients. If you conduct a bully presentation properly by informing everyone who has seen the property, or has booked an appointment, then what is unfair about that? The problem is many buyer agents don’t have the experience or knowledge on how to submit a bully offer, therefore their buyers lose out on a hot property. More training is required to help agents navigate thru this situation and if we don’t see more listings come to market, bully offers will continue to occur.

The freehold market saw another week of increases with 16% more new listings come to market and that reflected in the number of freehold properties sold, up by 34% from last week. Competition was strong with nearly 55% of properties selling above the asking price in the central core with multiple offers and the east end of the city (Riverdale and Leslieville) saw 76% of properties selling above the asking price. It’s not uncommon to see a property sell for $300,000 over the list price in these neighbourhoods.

The condo market saw a huge influx of new listings up 37% from the previous week but the number of sold units was down 17%. Urbanation released their condo market outlook report recently and here are some key facts:

1) 147,000 condos sold in the past 3 years.

2) Condo prices up 50% in 3 years.

3) Average downtown price >$1,000 PSF.

4) 123,000 new condos in development.

5) $100,000+ Income to buy average unit.

Bosley Real Estate Ltd. is a full service boutique brokerage operating in Toronto, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Port Hope and Cambridge Ontario since 1928. We have four centrally located offices and over 250 sales representatives selling and leasing homes and condominiums in all the vibrant communities we work in. Our brand is well recognized internationally thanks to our unique affiliation with Leading Real Estate Companies of the World. Our sales teams meet weekly to discuss market conditions, trending topics, and anecdotes that more accurately reflect the true temperature of the real estate market.

Bye, bye March! Welcome sunshine, warm weather, spring flowers and more listings! The March real estate update was released this week and housing sales suggests signs of some stability in Toronto’s market. The market is NOT posting declines in prices and the gains are modest. In fact, the average sale price for the City of Toronto is $830,043, up 1.5% from March of last year. We also saw new listings up 2% to 4,527 year-over-year, but the number of sales were down 9%. Despite sales being markedly lower than the record levels of 2016 and early 2017, the supply of listings has receded. This means that in many neighbourhoods we continue to see fierce competition between buyers for available listings and plenty of bidding wars.

The freehold sector witnessed its biggest increase in sold properties last week up 69% across the downtown core. There is still a bit of catching up to do on the listings side with only a 21% increase week-over-week. It is still interesting to note that the number of homes sold at or above the list price has remained consistent at a staggering 65%.

In the market report the average condo came in at $603,969 up 2.3% compared to March of last year. Last week we saw a 12% drop in new listings in the downtown core, but sales saw a significant increase, up nearly 31% over the previous week and of those sold, 45% sold above the list price.

The rental market report was also released this week and the GTA reported 6,646 condo apartment rental transactions in the first quarter of 2019. The average one-bedroom condo apartment saw a 7.4% increase to $2,143 a month and the average two-bedroom saw a 6% increase to $2,811 a month.