Who’s got Olympic fever? We do, we do. Our very own Queen West office has become the unofficial games watching headquarters for neighbouring Realtors. We wish it was our charming personalities but it’s more likely the big screen TV in the lobby. While we may be competitors we all agree that finding a home for our buyers has turned into a sport of its own. Mind you, we aren’t talking Olympic quality sports, it’s more like big game hunting as limited supply of housing continues to frustrate buyers and drive up home prices.

Take for example the freehold market in Toronto’s core. Over the last few weeks over 63% of properties sold in multiple offer situations. A remarkable number when you consider that in the same period, the number of listings has nearly doubled from 196 to 377. The increase in available homes has not met the need and until that happens, we will continue to see multiple offers. In the central core the availability of mid-range properties ($700k to $1.5M ) seems to be shrinking while jumping significantly in both the east and west cores. It is interesting to note that while others are professing the return of the high end, our research indicates that it is not holding its own. Listings remain high and sales almost non-existent. Barely 5% of high end listings (above $3M) are selling in comparison to nearly 20% of mid-range priced homes.

Condominium listings remain consistent. Two weeks ago there was an 18% jump in listings. That jump was relatively short lived as this week available listings actually fell by nearly 10%. On the flip side we continue to see some optimism in condominium sales. Over the last three weeks, sales have backed off a bit. On its own, the decrease in units might sound alarming however we have noted that the number of condo units selling at or above asking price has stayed remarkably steady throughout the last few weeks at 24%. While the entry level condo market remains the strongest, the high end market is on life support. We have recorded only 2 significant sales this year.