How to do your own Homework on home Prices

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Almost everyone has an interest in the housing market. It comprises a shocking percentage of our GDP and challenges “the weather” as our go-to topic of conversation.

Media sources push clickbait headlines, offer opinions from talking heads and generally portray the market as either 1980s Tokyo or 1930s Manhattan. The quotes and talking points in these pieces are driven by groups whose interest is typically promotional or political.   The discussion is biased and noisy.

So where do you find quieter opinions on the state of Real Estate? Or better yet, see and manipulate data for yourself, especially in neighbourhoods you’re selling from or moving to? Let’s take a look.

Sources of GTA Home and Market Research

Quite a few websites get raw data from the Toronto Real Estate Board. It’s not entirely raw, of course. It is delayed, typically, and TREB has a habit of shutting down websites that try to offer data without a happy spin on it. There’s also CREA for a national view. But real estate is too local for that to be of much use.

The bad news is that there isn’t any single source of data that is comprehensive. You have to pick and choose based on what you’re looking for.

Here’s a list:

Zolo.ca

Table of Toronto home prices

(Copyright Zolo.ca)

Zolo has strong visualizations for price and inventory levels in the last year or so. They aren’t so great for the bigger picture. House Sigma (below) is better for that.

Chart of Toronto real estate prices

Listing.ca is a little unsightly and hard to use but it is a good ‘big picture’ option. You can drill down into areas and building types across the GTA.

Next-level Property Analysis

House Sigma is probably the best-kept secret in research. It has detailed charts and tables for seasoned buyers, with fulsome information for specific listings. Their user interface is good and it is easy to separate neighbourhoods and home types.   It may be a little intimidating for a new buyer. Well, buying a home is even more terrifying so you might as well get used to it.

5 year view of the toronto housing market

Condominiums

Condos.ca has area-specific information for both sale and rental history. It’s easy to refine the data if you’re looking for. Say for a bachelor apartment. You can dig around in a unit’s listing history to see what it listed or rented for in the past. I wouldn’t rely on their overall market reports, however.

Agnostic reading

There are a few balanced, data-centric views on GTA real estate. The best is BetterDwelling.com. Another good option is Toronto Realty Blog.

Data you shouldn’t trust

The data straight from TREB and/or CREA and seen on most news sources is typically spun. Prices are either ‘rising on strong demand’ or ‘experiencing a soft landing’, with growth ahead from the talking point de jour.

You should take any ‘sold over asking’ or ‘list price to sold price’ numbers with a grain of salt. There are two reasons for this:

Listings that are priced too high and don’t attract attention are simply unlisted by the Realtor and then relisted at a lower price – which is then ‘sold over asking’.  Realtors will also purposely list a property at a low price to attract attention and start a bidding war. This skews data.

Rentals

Rental data is also somewhat skewed as TREB only calculates rentals conducted by Realtors, whereas most rentals are managed directly by the owner (Craiglist, Kijijii) or a corporation in the case of apartment buildings. Real rental prices are a little lower.

Where’s the housing market going?

No one knows. Detached homes have gone up almost parabolically in the last few years. The GTA is on fire. Toronto has levelled off. Condos have cooled off. Condo rents are at 2017 levels. Eventually everything will come down. Everything does. How much? No one knows.

Do your homework on your home purchases. We can help with your mortgage options. Buy what you can afford.