As temperatures drop to some of the lowest values Toronto has seen in years, data released Friday suggests that the city's housing market is cooling at an equally frantic pace.

Both home sales and prices were down by staggering year-over-year percentages in January of 2023, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB), which last year at this time was reporting spikes across the board. 

In January of 2022, the average selling price for a home in the Greater Toronto Area was $1,242,793 — roughly 28.6 per cent higher than the average selling price in January 2021.

This January? January of 2023? The average GTA home sold for just (lol) $1,038,668.

This represents a price drop of 16.4 per cent (or $204,125) over just 12 months, which would likely come as positive news to potential buyers if they could afford to get mortgages under the Bank of Canada's current interest rates.

"On a year-over-year basis, both sales and prices were down markedly, continuing to highlight the impact of higher borrowing costs on affordability over the last year," reads TRREB's latest monthly stats report, as published on Friday.

Home sales indeed continued their steep slide down the housing market charts in January of 2023, dropping 44.6 per cent since January 2022 with only 5,594 properties sold in the GTA.

And yet, despite these dismal figures, some analysts still insist that the market isn't actually tanking, claiming that sales and prices should both pick up throughout 2023.

"Home sales and selling prices appear to have found some support in recent months. This coupled with the Bank of Canada announcement that interest rate hikes are likely on hold for the foreseeable future will prompt some buyers to move off the sidelines in the coming months," said TRREB President Paul Baron when releasing the January 2023 market report.

"Record population growth and tight labour market conditions will continue to support housing demand moving forward."

BlogTO(Lauren O'Neil, February 3, 2023)