Urbanation said there were 3,841
new condominium apartments sold in fourth quarter of 2012, a 16% jump from the
third quarter. The 17,997 units sold in 2012 was below the five-year sales
average of 20,199. The 10-year average is 17,139.
There is still a large amount of
condo construction in the pipeline based on the fact there were 355 active
developments in 2012 with 56,866 under construction.
The average sale price in the
fourth quarter was $536 per square foot in the census area, up 5.2% from a year
ago. Unsold units were averaging $568 per square foot in the fourth quarter.
Urbanation downplayed the idea that
there is overbuilding in the Toronto market, citing a survey of builders.
I don't know where to begin with this article as it is
completely off and is simply misleading. Let's start with the title. First of all,
the title should be renamed with the word "GTA" replacing
"Toronto". All of the stats presented in the article are about
Toronto CMA, which includes Georgina and Burlington. Look, no one is saying
that there is a condo bubble in Georgina or Bolton, so please Garry, when you
are talking about the Toronto Condo market, use relevant statistics.
On
top of that, I don't know how you can call a Toronto's condo market strong
when the sales of new high rise units are down by 43% (2012 vs
2011) in City of Toronto and the mid January TREB report
says that prices for condos in Toronto are down 4.4%.
Secondly, Garry Marr, the author of the article, completely
avoids a year to year comparison of the condos sold in Toronto CMA and instead
compares 3rd and 4th quarters which is like comparing apples to oranges because
of seasonal variation in sales. Urbanation has a slightly different data set
than I have from BILDGTA, but they are still reasonably similar without about
6% discrepancy.
According to BILDGTA, there was a 48% drop in sales
of new high rise units in the City of Toronto. In sum, Garry, next time do your
homework before calling Toronto's condo market strong!
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