Mortgage Tips

Business is looking up – quite literally, “up” – for Toronto mortgage brokers and real estate agents, but business for realtors and mortgage brokers in the GTA is “way up”, as more and more suburban homebuyers opt for high-rise condominiums rather than traditional low-level housing, such as single-detached, duplex or townhomes.

The Globe and Mail reports that, ‘Seventy per cent of the new homes sold in the Greater Toronto Area in the second busiest October on record were high-rise condo units, according to stats released Monday by the Building Industry & Land Development Association.”

Sales of high-rise condos are soaring it seems, while sales of low – level, traditional housing are down, in large part due to the cost differential between similarly sized high-rise and low-rise properties. “Price differences, with a high-rise condo costing about $75,000 less for a similar sized property,” are due in some measure to the “low levels of (low-rise) inventory available on the market, BILD chief executive, Stephen Dupuis told the Globe.

“Sales of single-detached, semi-detached and town homes have fallen 32 per cent compared to last October,” reports the Globe and Mail, “as more people opt for suburban condos rather than a more traditional home.” The “biggest spikes” in sales of high-rise condos have shifted from the City of Toronto to the suburbs (although T.O. continues to lead overall sales), according to Mr. Dupuis.

Overall figures from the BILD show that sales of low-rise housing declined by 2.5 percent in Toronto and 32 percent in the GTA. Meanwhile high-rise condo sales in Toronto rose by a robust 14.2 percent in Toronto, a figure nearly doubled by high-rise sales in the GTA that clocked in with a 27.2 percent spike in sales. And, it appears, high-rise sales rose (no pun intended) exponentially in GTA hotspots closest to Toronto proper: condo sales rose by 40 percent in Halton, by 138 percent in York, and by a jaw-dropping 138 percent in Peel.

“The high-rise housing craze has started to spread to the suburbs and it’s a trend which will continue to grow,” Mr. Dupuis observes, meaning that not only mortgage Brokers in Toronto, but also realtors and mortgage brokers in Richmond Hill, Mortgage Broker in Vaughn, Mortgage Broker in Burlington and other GTA hotspots are likely to remain busy filling up high-rise towers – at least until next Spring’s traditional home sales market heats up.