Where have the listings gone?

While working on my regular mailings, I was providing a client with a comparison of the number of homes on the market this past January versus January 2009 and I was quite surprised by just how much of a difference exists between this year and last year. Here's an example:

In TREB district N03,
2009

• 232 homes on the market
• 25 sold
• average price $600,000
• average sale as a percent of list price: 94%

2010

• 93 homes on the market
• 36 sold
• average price $639,500
• average sale as a percent of list price: 100%

That means there were a whopping 60% fewer homes on the market in N03!
I know there's been an overall shortage of inventory across the GTA (on the order of 40% less, on average). So far, I have been unable to find any plausible reason to explain this, nor have I come across anything like that in TREB or in the media in general.

The smaller "inventory" means more buyer competition, hence the average house sold for LIST PRICE last month in N03!

Look at N06
2009

• 170 homes on the market
• 13 sold
• average price $464,596
• average sale as a percent of list price: 95%

2010

• 81 homes on the market - a 53% decrease in available inventory
• 21 sold
• average price $649,929 - that's a whopping 40% increase in average price!
• average sale as a percent of list price: 98%

 Stay tuned