When the market is hot, it becomes more difficult to buy real estate. You end up with more buyers than sellers. And because of this, there's a natural tendency to look further afield for opportunities. You don't want to overpay for the obvious assets, and so you start to pioneer.

This can work out just fine, particularly if the market remains strong. But oftentimes, when the market does turn, it is the peripheral stuff that gets hit the hardest. There is a flight to quality and pioneering gets quickly viewed as too risky.

Here in Toronto, I am consistently being told that there are peripheral development sites that have seen their value drop to 20-25 cents on the dollar compared to the peak, and that's if you can actually find a buyer. In many cases, the sites are now unsellable.

This, to me, is our periodic reminder that while it's important to search for overlooked opportunities and buy cheap, you can't forget to also buy quality.

So 2021 was a pretty good year for condominiums here in the Greater Toronto Area. According to the latest data (Q4-2021) from Urbanation, this is what happened last year:

• 30,844 new condominium sales. This is a 69% increase compared to 2020, which saw 18,282 new unit sales.

• Fourth quarter alone saw 8,361 unit sales, which is the best quarter on record according to Urbanation.

• Unsold inventory dropped 26% year-over-year because sales exceeded the number of new project launches by over 4,000 units.

• Average price for an unsold condominium unit in Q4-2021 reached $1,322 psf, which is an 18% increase compared to the year before.

• Resale condominiums also did exceptionally well with 29,880 unit sales -- a 49% annual increase.

• All in all, some 60,000 condominium units were purchased last year in the GTA. Of course, some were ready to be lived in and some were future homes.

CIBC Deputy Chief Economist Benjamin Tal was recently interviewed by Larysa Harapyn of the Financial Post about the state of the housing market in the Greater Toronto Area. The message he delivers is pretty clear: "If you think that Toronto is unaffordable now, you wait." The long-term fundamentals in this market remain strong. Demand is outstripping supply and will likely continue to do so, which is why Tal also stresses the importance of delivering more purpose-built rental housing. If you can't see the video above, click here. (And with that, I think it's time to switch topics for tomorrow's post. That's enough Toronto housing for one week.)