The COVID-19 pandemic is credited with triggering a “real estate boom” in 2020, with more than half of the country’s largest real estate markets posting double-digit price increases as national home prices soared 9.7 per cent in the last quarter.
Also, according to the Royal LePage House Price Survey, Ontario posted the highest year-over-year aggregate home price gains in dollar value in that quarter, with Markham leading the way: the aggregate price of a home here increased $133,932 to $1,100,436, the highest dollar value increase in aggregate home price.
Aggregate prices are calculated using a weighted average of the median values of all housing types collected. Markham was followed by Vaughan, Burlington, Pickering and Oakville.
“In April 2020, we issued our pandemic period forecast for Canadian real estate, the principal prediction being that unexpectedly soft spring home prices, historically low interest rates, and years of pent-up demand would trigger a sharp recovery of sales volumes and rising property prices in the second half of the year,” says Royal LePage President and CEO Phil Soper.
“As we close the books on the strangest year in my long career, ‘recovery’ proved to be an understatement. Looking at fourth quarter results, we can state without hyperbole that the health crisis triggered a real estate boom.”
When broken out by housing type nationally, the median price of a standard two-storey home rose 11.2 per cent year-over-year to $840,628, while the median price of a bungalow increased 10 per cent to $592,899. The median price of a condominium increased 3.9 per cent year-over-year to $509,239.
What’s on the horizon? “High levels of unresolved housing demand and low inventory levels will likely characterize the 2021 spring market, putting further upward pressure on housing values, particularly in the detached and larger townhome segments, as families with access to extremely low borrowing costs trade traditionally desirable urban locations for more personal space,” Soper predicts.
Royal LePage has issued a forecast that projects the aggregate price of a home in the Greater Toronto Area in 2021 is forecast to increase 5.75 per cent year-over-year to $990,300.
