GTA sees second-best year for new home sales in 2021
Michelle McNally
Livabl
The Greater Toronto Area had its second-best year in history for new homes sales in 2021, capping things off with the lowest count of home inventory ever recorded.
New data from the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) released today shows that new home inventory in the GTA dipped to the fewest properties on record December 2021.
Normally, the month of December sees few project launches. With that, total new home remaining inventory dropped to 8,922 units last month, about 2.3 months worth of supply based on average sales for the past 12 months. Since this dataset started to be recorded in January 2000, this is the lowest level yet. Typically, a balanced market should have nine to 12 months of inventory, BILD explained.
Remaining inventory includes units within pre-construction projects, projects that are currently under construction and those in completed buildings.
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In December 2021 alone, 2,739 new homes were sold. Condo apartments — which includes units in low, medium and high-rise buildings, stacked townhouses and loft units — contributed 2,170 sales to this total, marking the second-highest December for condo sales behind 2016.
The cost of a new single-family home shot up 38.5 per cent over the past 12 months to an average of $1,829,693. New condo apartment prices reported almost a third of that growth, rising 13.5 per cent year-over-year in December to $1,163,924.
“The record low inventory levels and record high benchmark pricing we saw in December illustrate perfectly why housing supply and affordability will rank among the defining issues in this year’s provincial and municipal elections,” said Justin Sherwood, BILD’s senior vice president of communications and stakeholder relations, in a press release.
“Insufficient housing supply is driving the GTA’s housing affordability challenge while exacerbating inequality, slowing down economic growth and threatening our collective quality of life. Voters will demand meaningful platforms and policy ideas from candidates and parties,” he added.
Overall, the GTA new home market had “extremely robust levels of new home sales,” in 2021, marking the second-highest year on record after 2002. In total, 46,651 new homes were sold across the region, 27 per cent above the 10-year average.
Condo apartment sales were strong in 2021, raking in 32,919 units sold last year. This misses the 2017 all-time record by just 125 units, and is 40 per cent above the 10-year average for the GTA.
Single-family homes — including detached, linked, and semi-detached houses and townhouses, but excluding stacked townhouses — accounted for the remaining portion of sales, with 13,732 properties sold in 2021. This was four per cent above the 10-year average.
Altus Group, BILD’s official source of new home market intelligence, provided the data used in the market report.
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