There are now more homes for sale in Toronto than there have been in over a decade

Toronto's housing affordability crisis is more apparent than ever now that sales transactions have been plummeting for months, with alarmingly few properties changing hands amid skyrocketing inventory.

While various stakeholders have shared charts showing double-digit year-over-year increases in the number of homes on the market — and also the number of days those homes are staying on the market — one firm zoomed out even further, and really put the trend into perspective.

Here's one more key sign that Toronto's real estate market is in distress right now https://t.co/HdpvxA5vKU

— blogTO (@blogTO) July 11, 2024

According to the latest market outlook from Royal LePage, there are more homes up for sale in the Toronto area than there have been in a shocking 10 years, pointing to not a supply problem, but an affordable supply problem.

"Sales activity in te GTA was unseasonably low this spring," Karen Yolevski, the real estate company's CEO, said in atheir report this week.

"New listings are up double digits compared to this time last year, and active listings are the highest they've been in more than a decade."

Though she added that this is great for consumers given that the region has been "starved of inventory for some time" and that this is "the closest we've been to a balanced market in several years," it begs the question of what good the inventory is if no one can afford it.

Prices have stayed bull-headedly high despite hardly anyone buying, with some developers even halting new builds they've already started or putting projects into receivership due to a lack of funding from pre-construction purchases.

Here's what you actually need to make in a year to afford a home in Toronto right now https://t.co/IDc5KoPN9e

— blogTO (@blogTO) June 21, 2024

Per Royal LePage's own data, the average aggregate price of a home of any type in the region is now a staggering $1,215,300 (more than $1.7 million for single-family detachd homes), and only set to go higher.

The forecast predicts a 10 per cent increase in this number by the fourth quarter of this year, to $1,235,630 — way beyond the budget of many and necessitating an income of more than $230,000 per year to afford.

Meanwhile, mortgage debt in Ontario is now the worst it has ever been, topping $1 billion last month.