Toronto's Hottest House Type Is.....

John Pasalis in Toronto Real Estate News

One of the major misconceptions most buyers have about the real estate market is that changes in supply, demand and most importantly price happen uniformly across the country and even across a particular city.  That's why most buyers get a bit concerned when they read forecasts that Canadian house prices are going to decline by 10%.  They assume that a decline of 10% in house values across Canada means my house in Leslieville is also going to decline by 10%.

Regular readers of this blog know the real estate market really consists of a bunch of tiny micro markets each with their own factors that influence changes in supply, demand and price.  Even within the same city we can see wildly different conditions from one neighbourhood to the next.  

Today I want to show how these same ideas can be extended not just to different neighbourhoods but even to a particular type of housing.  In the same way the demand for homes can vary from one neighbourhood to the next the demand for a particular type of house (detached, semi-detached, townhomes, condos and condo towns) can vary across the city.

I turned to TREB's August sales report to see which house type is the hottest in the city of Toronto.  I based my analysis on three key metrics from the report.

Days on Market: The faster homes are selling, the higher the demand for them

The following chart shows the Days on Market by house type.

DOM
 
We can see that townhomes are selling the fastest at 19 days followed by semis at 20 days and detached houses at 21 days.  The days on market jumps up to 32 days for condos and 28 days for condo towns.

Sale Price as a % of List: House types selling for as close to list as possible are more in demand than house types selling for well under the asking price.

PctList

Townhomes are selling for 99% of asking compared to 100.2% for semis and 99.4% for detached houses.  Condos are selling for 97.6% and condo towns for 98.8%.

 

Sales-to-inventory ratio: This ratio is a measure of how the supply of homes in the market compares to the demand.  A sales to inventory ratio of 70% means out of every 10 homes available for sale in a given month 7 are selling.  Similarly a sales-to-inventory of 30% means that only 3 out of ten homes are selling.  It follows that the higher the sales-to-inventory ratio the more heated the market.

StoI

Semi-detached houses have the highest sales-to-inventory ratios at 68% followed by detached homes at 54% and towns at 53%.  Condo towns have a sales-to-inventory ratio of 50% followed by condos at 36%.

The Winner is....

With the highest sales-to-inventory ratio, sales as a % of list and the second lowest days on market semi-detached houses are the hottest house type in the city of Toronto.

The Loser is...

With the lowest sales-to-inventory, sales as a % of list and the highest days on market condo apartments are the worst performing house type in the city

 

These results are really a function of two important trends.  The demand for semi-detached houses is really an indicator of the strong demand for affordable housing in urban walkable neighbourhoods that have very good access to transit.  The condo statistics are being impacted by the significant increase in the supply of new condominiums being built.

 

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John Pasalis is the Broker Owner of Realosophy Realty Inc in Toronto. Realosophy focuses on researching Toronto neighbourhoods to help their clients make smarter real estate decisions. Email John

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