Webster's Dictionary has two definitions for the word “drought”. The first is a long period of time during which there is very little or no rain and the second is a prolonged or chronic  shortage or lack of something expected or desired. Toronto, it seems suffers both. Not only has it been the driest summer in recent memory, we are also suffering through the longest listing drought on record. Maybe there is some good news on the horizon; It is bound to rain eventually and the fall market is closing in. The question is... will it be enough to quench our housing desires? 

The freehold sector reversed an earlier trend of increased listings by re - cording a slight 13.7% drop in available homes while also recording a 6% increase in sales. This was slightly lower that the sales target we predicted last week however competition for those homes was up.  Last  week  almost 67% of home transactions were at or above the list price. That number is 15% higher than for the same period last year despite having virtually the same number of sales. 

We love witnessing the condo market’ s continued success. Listings remain unchanged from the prior week yet sales backed off marginally (3.6%). Despite the slight reduction in the number of sales, over 40% of suites traded at or above the list price. If you really want to get a true picture of today’ s condo market in the 416 consider that one year ago there were 220 more listings than there were last week, 100 fewer sales and less than 17% of suites sold at or above the list price.