The city’s real estate board says total listings in the Greater Toronto Area plunged 37.8 per cent last month to 9,949.
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Premier Christy Clark says it’s too early to tell if the recently introduced foreign buyers tax is working, but she says this is only the beginning.
This comes after the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver saw home sales drop by 26 per cent this August compared to past year.
The twin forces of record sales and tight supply drove another month of big price gains.
“The conditions underlying strong demand for … housing remained in place, including a relatively strong regional economy, growth in average earnings and low borrowing costs”, Larry Cerqua, president of the Toronto Real Estate Board, said in a statement.
The average price of a detached home fell to $1.47 million last month, a 16.7 per cent drop from the month before.
Prices in Vancouver continued to rise, however, with the benchmark price for all residential properties climbing 31.4 per cent from a year ago to $933,100. However, compared with July, the figure was down 0.1 per cent.
While she says changes to the new legislation are not an option, the government will be doing even more to try to address housing affordability in Metro Vancouver.
The influx of foreign home buyers to Vancouver, mostly from mainland China, has helped make it Canada’s most expensive property market.
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Without giving away specifics, Clark says her government will be looking at the shortage of housing supply in cities.
