Toronto single-family home sales are the highest they've been in almost 20 years

Sales of new construction single-family homes in Toronto absolutely soared in September. 

According to new numbers released by the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) on Wednesday, September was a busy month for new single-family homes in the GTA and even hit the highest levels for that month since 2003. 

Sales of these homes, which include detached, linked, semi-detached houses, and townhouses sold 2,334 units last month, up a staggering 168 per cent from the same time last year and 110 per cent above the 10-year average. 

Now that's a lot of homes sold in one month. 

Demand for new single-family homes has outpaced supply so far this year. Read our latest new home sales data release with @AltusData: https://t.co/vYOTDo1Mnj pic.twitter.com/Dl3hMWoEyy

— BILD (@bildgta) October 28, 2020

"The level of market demand for new housing has remained strong, with year-to-date new home sales up from last year," Ryan Wyse, Altus Group's manager of analytics and data solutions said in a news release. Altus Group is BILD's official source for new home market intelligence.

"The single-family home market was very active in September, with particularly strong activity seen at newly launched detached and townhouse communities. To date this year, demand for new single-family homes has outpaced supply."

In terms of condos and units in low, medium, and high-rise buildings, stacked townhouses, and loft units, 2,603 of these were sold in September which is a 15 per cent increase from 2019 and 33 per cent above the 10-year average.

"While demand for both high-rise and low-rise homes was strong in September, the clear insight of the last few months is how quickly consumer demand can evolve," David Wilkes, BILD president and CEO added in the release.

"We need to make sure that policy and regulations are flexible and adaptable enough to accommodate market demands, from increased demand for low-rise homes to condo units that reflect current market conditions both in size and built form."

With high demand of course comes an increase in price. According to BILD, the benchmark price for single-family homes rose in September to $1,179,249 which is an nine per cent increase over 12 months. 

Similarly, the benchmark price of condos rose to $1,016,550 in the same month, up 20.9 per cent over the last 12 months.