Hi everyone! For those of you that don’t know me, my name Danielle Demerino and I’m a Toronto real estate agent working hard to find all of my clients their dream homes, investment properties, rentals, even properties to flip! Since we are entering a new year, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the market will bring us in 2021 and wanted to share my predictions on what I think will happen specifically to the Toronto Condo Market.
What a year 2020 was. We saw a lot of fluctuation in the condo and housing market. We saw detached, semis and town houses sell for record amounts. We saw beautiful condos sell for way under market value. We’ve seen condo rental inventory increase and rent decrease. It was an unexpected year in Toronto real estate and we are excited to see if our predictions for the condo market in 2021 will come true!
I would like to reiterate that these are simply predictions, not guarantees. We anticipate that the condo market is going to see a resurgence in 2021. If we take a look at the condo market from February 2020 until now, we’ve seen a drop in price of about 12%. This is something that we haven’t seen in a long time. While we witnessed a very healthy double digit growth for some some time, we were bound to experience some type of drop regardless of the reasons.
With the pandemic in full force and the new AirBnB laws in place (the main one being the AirBnb property must be your primary residence in order to list) we certainly saw that drop take place. The more people were forced to stay home, work from home, entertain from home, the more people desired more space and a backyard of their own. As people spent less money on entertainment and saved, the shift to increased sales in detached, semi-detached and town houses soared and the inventory of condos continued to grow and prices continued to drop.
Let’s fast forward 2021. We are already slowly seeing that the condo inventory is decreasing which will eventually create a higher demand for condos. Sure some sellers may have terminated their listing; however, we are still seeing lower inventory which will inevitably create a higher demand. Let’s focus on the downtown active condo numbers at at end of 2020:
October: 1,800 active condo listings
November: 1,600 active condo listings
December: 950 active condo listings
As you can see, in a short period the active listings have been sliced in half. We have seen a shift from a buyers market, to a balanced market to a sellers market based on the inventory. This is supply vs demand at its best.
Another reason I am anticipating the condo market is on the rise is simply based on price point. We are watching the price point detached, semi-detached and town houses continue to increase. At some point, buyers are going to look at the evaluation of a condo that has similar square footage to a detached, semi-detached or townhouse and realize they can get the same space for much, much less if they choose a condo. I can certainly see first time home buyers take advantage of these low prices along with the incredible interest rates in place at the moment.
Lastly, with Canada starting to rollout the Covid-19 vaccine, we will eventually see borders once again open, immigration increase, more international students, etc. If you consider the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic and our condo market only fell 12% and dodged a crash, it’s actually quite stable and is bound to make a comeback!
If you would like any more information, please give me a call at 416-728-5401.
