Sellers still have the advantage in a sluggish Toronto housing market as buyers compete for the relatively few properties up for sale, according to data from the Toronto Real Estate Board.
April numbers show a 7 per cent drop in the number of sales in the Greater Toronto Area compared with the record pace set in the same month last year.
Still, April's activity was an improvement over the dismal showing in the first quarter of 2008, TREB statistics show.
House prices are up in the resale market, meanwhile, with a 5 per cent jump in the GTA in April over April, 2007. The average price in the GTA stood at $398,687, compared with last year's $379,025 in April.
Looking at the city of Toronto, sales were even more slack than in the broader GTA. With 3,467 transactions, sales dropped 10 per cent last month from April of 2007.
The average price in the city of Toronto was $446,781 in April, marking a 6 per cent increase over the $412,480 recorded in April of last year.
Margaret Bertrand, real estate agent with Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd., says her office has been very busy this month as a dormant market seems to be coming to life. She believes the spring market was delayed this year by the gruelling winter.
"The weather we had was really horrendous."
Sellers didn't want to list their properties and potential buyers didn't want to look at houses, she says. "It's just a later season, I think."
Ms. Bertrand expects plenty of new listings to come on-stream in the next few weeks.
She says houses priced at less than $1-million are selling briskly while those above are taking longer to sell than they have in the recent past. "Some of the high-end properties are sitting but eventually they're selling."
Ms. Bertrand says bidding wars are less intense than they have been in previous seasons, but that's a change for the better, in her opinion. Buyers don't like to enter into competition, she points out, and houses that are priced fairly are selling quickly.
Cheri McCann of Sutton Group-Bayview Realty Inc. also believes the spring season had a rough start because of all the snow.
"We're in our spring market now," she says. "Normally our spring market starts right after New Year's."
Ms. McCann, who specializes in the Toronto centre core, is bringing out three new listings this week and had three last week. She recently sold a bungalow that received two offers — both from builders.
"They're looking at projects starting a year out, so they're not overly nervous."
Ms. McCann says that some houses are selling behind the scenes. She recently matched a seller with one of her buyers and the sale was completed before a For Sale sign went up.
"If [vendors] feel they're getting a good value, they don't have to go through the showings," she says. That way they don't have to go to the trouble of staging the house for sale. "A lot of things are going and they're not necessarily hitting the market."
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