Keep it Up, Toronto!

A recent report released by the Toronto Real Estate Board has shown that sales are up in Toronto for 2011 from where they were ago one year ago in 2010.They’re way up, 25% to be exact! That’s something to boast about in a country where other large cities like Montreal and Vancouver are trying to unload all the vacancies they’ve been holding onto for the past several months. And generally when sales see such an increase, in any city, the one question people always ask is how long until those sales start to come down.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case here; the increase in sales seem to be giving Torontonians greater confidence in not only the city’s housing market, but for the economy as a whole. Just during the first two weeks of September alone, there have been 3,149 home sales in Toronto – a drastic jump from one year ago when the same sales figures sat around the 700 mark. And listings have gone up too! 6,890 listings have been put on the market during the first two weeks of September – that’s a 14% increase from the same time last year. And, one more hopeful stat? The prices of the homes that are selling are also going up! The average home in Toronto today costs $454,194; that’s about $50,000 more than what they cost in 2010.
So how does this spell only more good news for Toronto, and why should it keep the city’s residents full of hope? Because when sales go up, residents (i.e. consumers) have more faith in the economy. Something else sure to instill a little more of the people’s faith in a quickly rebounding economy is the fact that they’re not looking at a downturn either. With low mortgage rates, people can afford to be buying homes once again. And, we all know by now that those rates aren’t going down any time too soon. So keep smiling, Toronto, and keep it up!