Brandon Donnelly

Land prices and transaction volumes are, as you'd expect, down

Brandon Donnelly

Brandon Donnelly

Bullpen Consulting just released its Q3-2024 high-rise land report for the Greater Toronto Area. Here's a figure showing average high-density land prices (on a per buildable square foot) by quarter since 2018:

post image

Here's their summary data broken out by Toronto versus the Greater Toronto Area:

post image

And here's a list of all the land transactions last quarter:

post image

At the highest level, the average high-density land trade last quarter across the GTA was at around $98 per buildable square foot. This is down 13% from $112 pbsf in Q3-2023. And going back to the first chart in this post, there also seems to be a longer-term decline in high-density land prices.

But as Bullpen rightly points out in their report, there are limits to what can be gleaned from data like this. And that's because land transactions can be structured in countless ways. Did the vendor provide cheap financing? Was there a delayed close? Are there any unique site conditions that could be impacting value? The list goes on.

So even though prices and transaction volumes are down (which is what one would totally expect right now), it still doesn't feel like this data accurately reflects what's going on in the market today. I think the reality is worse.

If you'd like to join Bullpen's mailing list, here's their website.

Figures: Bullpen Research & Consulting

Collect this post as an NFT.

Brandon Donnelly

Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly to receive new posts directly to your inbox.

Over 4.2k subscribers

Land prices and transaction volumes are, as you'd expect, down