Toronto set for another strong year says TREB

The Toronto Real Estate Board has published its inaugural Market Year in Review & Outlook which includes brand new data from Ipsos Reid on recent and intending home buyers. The polling firm’s president Sean Simpson says that there are still a lot of new buyers in the market: “12 per cent of GTA households are very likely to purchase a home over the next year.  First-time buyers accounted for approximately half of intending buyers. This includes young people aged 18 to 34, who made up the majority of intending first-time buyers,” added Mr. Simpson.

The TREB report predicts between 96,500 and 105,000 home sales in 2016 and could well end as a record breaking year depending on borrowing costs and availability of properties, especially in the low-rise sector. The average selling price of homes is forecast at between $655,000 and $665,000.

“For most home buyers, at least some of their purchase price will be covered with a mortgage.  However, the Ipsos Reid survey found that a very small share of intending buyers was planning on down payments of between five and 9.9 per cent.  This suggests that only a small percentage of intending buyers will be impacted by the mortgage lending guideline changes announced by the Federal Government in December 2015,” said TREB’s director of market analysis Jason Mercer. 
 

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