Low-rise single-family home neighborhoods remain off limits. Apartments should only go in select locations (provided they don't bother the single-family homes). And any efforts to create greater affordability and diversity should only impact the new apartments and not the low-rise single-family homes that already exist.

I would encourage all of you to have a listen to 99% Percent Invisible's recent episode about Toronto's "missing middle." It does a great job explaining why Toronto looks and performs the way that it does today, and why it's time that we do something about it. It's also highly relevant to not just Toronto, but many cities across North America.

Low-rise single-family home neighborhoods remain off limits. Apartments should only go in select locations (provided they don't bother the single-family homes). And any efforts to create greater affordability and diversity should only impact the new apartments and not the low-rise single-family homes that already exist.

I would encourage all of you to have a listen to 99% Percent Invisible's recent episode about Toronto's "missing middle." It does a great job explaining why Toronto looks and performs the way that it does today, and why it's time that we do something about it. It's also highly relevant to not just Toronto, but many cities across North America.

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

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

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