Home sales in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) fell 5.2% in August, marking the third consecutive monthly decline in Canada’s largest housing market.
The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) said that home sales across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) totaled 5,294 in August, down 5.2% from the same period last year.
The average price of a home in the GTA dropped 3.1% in August from July to $1.08 million. Home prices in the Toronto market are now down 18.9% from a peak reached in February 2022.
New home listings throughout the GTA rose 16.2% year-over-year.
TRREB blamed the cooling housing market in Toronto on interest rates, noting that the Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate in July to a 22-year high of 5% to help lower inflation.
The average interest rate charged on a home mortgage in Canada is now above 6%, making it prohibitively expensive for many people to purchase a home.
Vancouver Market Rises
However, across the country, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said that August home sales rose 21% from a year earlier, bucking the slowdown seen in other Canadian cities.
Despite the year-over-year increase, the 2,296 homes sold in Vancouver during August was 13.8% below the 10-year seasonal average for the city.
The average price of a home sold in Metro Vancouver increased 2.5% to $1.2 million in August from a year earlier.
New home listings in the city reached 3,943 last month, an 18% increase from a year ago but 5.3% below the 10-year seasonal average.
The real estate board said in a statement that the strong August sales data shows that Vancouver’s housing market has defied predictions of a major slowdown this year.
