Toronto pockets up as market cools

Prices jump in Trinity Bellwoods, Leslieville and Old Mill but fall in Richview and Graydon Hall

Blustery winter weather cooled Toronto’s resale housing market in the first three months of the year, but pockets such as Old Mill and Trinity Bellwoods stayed sheltered in their own hothouse micro-climates. Meanwhile, most of the rest of Toronto saw more tepid price increases or “” in some cases “” outright declines.

Across the Greater Toronto Area, the average price increased 4.5 per cent to $379,006 in the first quarter, compared with the same period last year, according to data from the Toronto Real Estate Board. The number of single-family homes that changed hands dipped to 17,521 in the first three months of 2008, compared with 20,463 transactions in the same period last year.

Amid the art installations and retro lounges of Queen Street West, resale house prices in the urban Trinity Bellwood neighbourhood jumped 29.4 per cent in the first quarter, compared with the same period last year.

To the west, prices in the Old Mill area near the banks of the Humber River rose 13.2 per cent from the same time last year. And to the east, Scarborough Village was the hot spot, with the average price up 11 per cent over the average in the first three months of 2007. Other trend-defying neighbourhoods include Allenby, Beaconsfield, Hillcrest and Parkdale.

Chill continues

Meanwhile, the chill that permeated the market in the opening months of 2008 appears to have continued into the spring: The GTA resale housing market saw 3,955 homes change hands in the first half of April, down 5 per cent from the same period last year, TREB reported. And across Canada, the resale market is “sound but cooling,” says Cal Lindberg, president of the Ottawa-based Canadian Real Estate Association.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, existing home sales in Canada’s major markets in the first quarter of 2008 declined by 7.1 per cent, compared with the previous quarter, and by 10.6 per cent from the same period the previous year, to 81,747 units, CREA reports.

Changes in the average resale price in Toronto varied widely by neighbourhood. Toronto pockets where the average price fell include Richview, with a slide of 14.3 per cent, Armour Heights with a 33.8-per-cent tumble, Graydon Hall with a 41.2-per-cent decline and Lawrence Manor with a 21-per-cent fall. In the east end, L’Amoureux fell 7.23 per cent while Leslieville jumped 21 per cent. Price changes were recorded across the price spectrum: In the tony market of Forest Hill, for example, the average price fell 25.1 per cent to $825,439.

Source: Globe and Mail, Toronto Real Estate Board