Corinne McCabe , Broker

In the early stages of the lockdown most of us where in a state of shock. That has changed as time has gone on. People now realize it will not be the same moving forward, so we are starting to plan for life after the lockdown.

Toronto real estate sale numbers may be down overall, but homes in certain neighbourhoods of the city are attracting avid interest. This week we know of a couple of properties that went wild. A two-bedroom semi in Danforth Village listed at $799K attracted 12 offers and a detached in prime Riverdale listed at $1.8M got 8 bully offers. The hottest-selling price sector in April was the $750,000-$999,000 range for freeholds, which includes semis and townhouses. With 184 sales, it was three times higher than the next price tier which is between $1 million and $1.25 million that saw 61 transactions.

The lowest point for sales was the week ending April 11, with 557 sales in the Toronto region, but the numbers have steadily increased since, to 909 in the first week of May. That is still half of what the sales were in mid-March, but it does represent 63-per-cent growth since the recent lockdown shock. Because active listings continue to decline, the competition for the few houses out there seems to be supporting prices. 

It’s hard to see it now but the dust will settle, and we will be left with a new world to navigate for our clients. We do know that whatever the outcome, it will be different than it was before and there is no going back. The pandemic will leave behind the largest consumer shift in world history. People will spend differently, people will have different tolerance levels for risk, and people will need to transact real estate.

Awh…the month of May when spring gradually blooms into summer and finally some good news to report. Some economists apparently predict home prices to rise 6% this year and we can expect to see rapid price growth once the outbreak passes, several recent forecasts have predicted, even amid massive job losses. Despite a steep drop in sales this year, the average home price in Canada will be 6.1% higher at the end of this year than it was a year earlier, TD Bank said in a forecast issued this week.

Given that incomes are unlikely to rise much during this crisis, affordability will deteriorate when you look at house prices. Sales may be falling, but the supply of homes on the market is falling with them which means the market balance isn’t shifting much. The country won’t see a sudden rush of people who need to sell their homes quickly, thanks to the banks’ new mortgage deferral programs.

And what about the millions of Canadians who have lost work in this crisis? Won’t this affect house prices? Economists think that won’t have as much impact on the housing market as one would think, because, they say the jobs lost in this crisis have disproportionately affected people in service industries ― think customer service reps and Starbucks baristas ― and these people overwhelmingly tend to rent.

TD’s forecast sees Toronto house prices rising 7.8% this year, compared to last year, while Vancouver will see 4.7% growth. Things will look worse out west, TD predicted, where the oil slump will lead to a 4.7% price decline in Alberta. Sales are poised to plunge at a historic pace in April, while gradually recovering in subsequent months as buyers remain cautious, the report states. “We think this recession is going to be deep but quick, and the economy will recover quite quickly as soon as we substantially get through the health crisis”, said chief economist Peter Norman for The Altus Group.