Canada transforming herself into China or India

While the country’s housing market is just digging itself out of a winter slump, sales of new condos in Toronto have been ramping up. That’s despite the fact that Toronto condos are at the top of economists’ and policy makers’ watch lists.

RealNet said that the benchmark price of a new condo in the Toronto area rose 1 per cent in March to $436,898. But condo prices per square foot in Toronto peaked in February and then dipped slightly to $548 in March.

Unit sizes have generally been shrinking in recent years. They ticked up from their February low, to a benchmark level of 797 square feet in March. The benchmark was closer to 900 square feet five years ago.

The number of newly constructed units in and around the city that found a buyer last month reached 2,496. That’s more than double the number from a year earlier, and significantly above the average 1,753 units that sold in the month of March over the past ten years.

While developers hailed the sales surge in March as a sign of consumers’ renewed confidence in the market, many experts are still warning of potential problems ahead.

RealNet president George Carras noted that shifts in the benchmark size could be due to a changing mix in the number of studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms that are being built.

“I think the unit sizes are small as they are now and I think it’s going to be difficult to see them go smaller,” said Bryan Tuckey, chief executive of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), which represents developers. He added that “we’ll hopefully start to see more two-bedroom units so that families may be able to find a home in downtown Toronto.”