Friday the 13th is generally believed to be a bad luck day. But with a boiling Toronto real estate market, low interest rates and tight new inventory, today is a good news day for sellers who have been holding out, waiting for their ship to come in. It’s kind of like going to the grocery store for batteries the day before the big hurricane only to find the shelves are bare while the kid outside is selling them for twice the price.

We’ve been collecting weekly sales data for a while now and it is often fun to look back a year and compare markets. For instance, last year at this time, there were about 200 new freehold listings in the downtown core. Today it is only marginally better at 210. While we have been tracking upward in the number of listings since the beginning of the year, the extreme cold has generally slowed that trend down. The big difference is the number of sales. Last year there were 75 sales while this week we registered 148 sales with well over 60% selling at or above the list price.

The resale condominium sector is following the same trends. New listings are only slightly higher than the same period last year (516 compared to 489) but sales have climbed by nearly 20% and the number of condos sold at or above asking has hit another record (27%). While there seems to be adequate inventory across the downtown core, our research shows that the most desired suites tend to attract end users in boutique buildings in established neighbourhoods.