toronto housing shortage

Toronto housing shortage verging on crisis levels

In the latest bit of troubling news related to Toronto's real estate market comes a report from the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), which suggests the city's soaring housing prices are a sign of trouble on the horizon.

"We have a shortage of housing supply in the GTA that is approaching crisis levels,” BILD President and CEO Bryan Tuckey said in a press release.

This lack of inventory is driving prices to record highs with no let up in demand. The average price for a detached home in the GTA reached $1,264,604 at the end of 2016, marking an increase of $273,000 in the last 12 months according to BILD's figures.

“Housing is selling as quickly as the industry can bring it to market and the lack of developable land that is serviced with infrastructure, excessive red tape, out-of-date zoning and NIMBYism are hindering our ability to bring more to the market.”

The numbers related to inventory are, indeed, scary. According to BILD, "at the end of December 2016 there were 13,670 new homes available for purchase, less than half of the 30,400 homes that were available in builders’ inventories a decade ago."

Much of the supply that is available comes in the form of condos, though unit availability reached a decade-long low at 11,792 units last month. Of the low-rise housing on the market, just 742 were single-family detached homes.

As these numbers continue to paint a picture of a market with prices spiraling out of control, some economists believe the government will intervene to cool the market. Until that happens, it appears more records are on track to be broken.

Lead photo by

Chris Kim


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