What a weekend.
Almost 4,000 people came through the Junction House sales office for our neon popup gallery. At one point throughout the day on Saturday, there was an over 1 hour wait to get in. The team had to implement a viewing time limit in order to keep the line moving.
The event surpassed all of our expectations in terms of visitors and buzz. Many of the local businesses in the area also experienced a pop in foot traffic as a result.
The Downtown Yonge BIA and Neon Demon Studio (as well as many others) did an incredible job coordinating and curating the exhibit. And we are thrilled to have played a small role in bringing it to life.
What is clear to me after this weekend is that people really love neon (and, of course, Instagramming said neon) and that there's a market here in Toronto for a permanent museum. It's going to happen.
For those of you who missed the exhibit, there's no shortage of photos online. Check out #JunctionHouse and #NeonMuseumTO to get started. A big thank you to the entire team for making this happen.
For more information on our Junction House condominium project, click here.
This morning BILD and Altus Group released their January 2019 new home sales figures for the Greater Toronto Area.
Here are the highlights:
1,362 new homes sold in January 2019 across the GTA. This is up 14% compared to last January.
Of these, 942 (~69%) were condominiums (includes low, mid, and high-rise, as well as townhouses). And 420 (~31%) were single-family homes (includes detached, semi-detached, and freehold townhouses).
Condominium sales volume is sitting only about 5% below the 10-year average and the benchmark price increased this month to $803,638, which represents a 12.5% year-over-year increase.
On the other hand, single-family home sales are down about 53% from the 10-year average and the benchmark price decreased by about 8.1% compared to last year. It is sitting at $1,130,046.
While there continues to be a bifurcation in the new home market, we are seeing improvements across the board and the data is consistent with Altus' prediction that 2019 will see an increase in overall sales.
It is also important to consider how geography might factor into the above numbers. Here are the January sales numbers for the last three years broken down by region within the GTA:
Just under 80% of the new condominiums sold last month took place in Toronto, whereas only about 1.2% of the single-family homes sold last month took place in the city. You can count them on one hand. There were only 5.
So rather than just look at this in terms of housing type, I think the other way to interpret the data is that it could suggest strong and continued demand for centrally located and transit-oriented communities.
And that just so happens to translate into a condominium.
Photo by Eugene Aikimov on Unsplash
Urbanation released its Q3-2018 condo market results for the Greater Toronto Area earlier this month.
Here are a few highlights:
- The unsold inventory of new condos in development is currently 33% below the 10-year average of 14,806 units.
- Year-to-date sales of new condominiums decreased to 14,055 units from 25,839 units (same period last year). 2017 was a record year.
- The average price per square foot for new project launches in Q3-2018 was $1,044 psf. This is the first time the average has broken the $1,000 psf mark.
- This is a significant price increase from last year and it is being driven by low supply, stable demand, and rising development/construction costs (my opinion).
- The average unit size for project launches in Q3-2018 was 714 sf.
- The average opening quarter absorption rate remains above 55%. It has been this way since Q1-2016.
For the full press release, click here.