Bullpen Consulting and Batory Management published their Q4-2019 land insights report for the Greater Toronto Area today. According to the report, there were 36 high-density apartment land transactions in Q4-2019. The average sale price was about $111 per buildable square foot and Bullpen estimates that these future projects — assuming they go condo — will sell for just under $1,000 psf on average.
But that’s blended across the entire GTA.
Looking at the core of Toronto (former City of Toronto boundaries), the average price per buildable square foot was about $187, which represents a year-over-year increase of 28%. There’s also a premium for mid-rise sites. Bullpen pegs the average price of a mid-rise site in the City — unzoned but with an active development application — at about $231 pbsf. These numbers will obviously translate into much higher condo/apartment prices.
If you’d like to download a copy of the report, click here.
BRANDON DONNELLY 
Great report, very smart folks at those two firms.
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So my takeaway from this is that land prices are not the main thing driving up end user prices. My downtown condo was sold to its original buyers (before I got it via resale) for about $400 per sqft around 2006 or so, occupancy 2009. Assuming that land was free back then, the cost with all other pricing components assumed constant would have been only $587 now. Or $400 times 14 years of 2% inflation would still only be $528 inflated original + max of $187 extra land costs = $715. Instead we’re well over $1000 in the downtown area now.
So someone other than landowners increased their share of the pie by a number that exceeds inflation by an incredible amount.
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What a pity that I sold my country house with a small ranch in Greater Toronto 15 years ago. Today it could be good money. Who knew?!
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