Even if realtors want to hold out hope that Toronto's housing market will soon be booming again, the stats continue to prove them wrong, and October's numbers are no different from recent trends.

The latest report from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) indicates that high interest rates and the incredibly expensive cost of living in the city — factors that have persisted for many months now — are keeping people out of the real estate game, and it's noticeably impacting our historically red-hot market.

While the group notes that record immigration numbers and what it considers a "relatively resilient" economy (which just qualified as a recession due to the housing market specifically) have kept demand up, sales volumes continue to dwindle.

The number of home sales across the GTA was down 5 per cent last month from the month prior, and fell 5.8 per cent compared to October 2022 despite there being 38 per cent more new listings and a whopping 50 per cent more active listings than the same time last year (though that point marked a 12-year low).

And, while both the MLS benchmark price and actual average selling price increased from last October — by 1.4 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respectively — the report notes that the benchmark dropped 1.7 per cent compared to September.

Other tidbits show that the market may not be doing so well in the face of stakeholders' positivity.

Countless major home projects are currently on pause due to market uncertainty, buyers are bailing on pre-construction homes even when they've paid deposits, and homes are going for way below their asking price as sellers get desperate.

There is also the fact that places are sitting on the market way longer than they used to — TRREB's own data has shown a steady month-over-month rise in listing days on the market, now at an average of 21, and property days on the market, now at 32.

Other sources have also noted prices dropping in recent months, though the salary required to purchase a house keeps going up — another thing dissuading would-be buyers battling high interest rates.

Per TRREB's figures, the average price for any type of home in the GTA in October was $1,125,928, and the median price, $959,500, compared to a $1,119,428 average and $960,000 median in September and $1,082,496/$933,250 in August — meagre gains compared to previous years before interest rates got so high.

"Home prices remain well below their record peak reached at the beginning of 2022, so lower home prices have mitigated the impact of higher borrowing costs to a certain degree," the board's experts note.

"More demand has been pointed at the rental market, as high borrowing costs and uncertainty on the direction of interest rates has seen many would-be home buyers remain on the sidelines in the short term. When mortgage rates start trending lower, home sales will pick up."

BlogTO(Becky Robertson, November 2nd,2023)