Back in September, 2021, we wrote an article about how wrong the stats are for how long it takes real estate to sell. Our review then found that the number of days on market could be off by as much as 38%!

The reason for why these stats are wrong isn’t due to agents making mistakes or misrepresenting the data, but because of a quirk as how to the system works. Basically, the MLS system that we use to list real estate in Ontario allows real estate agents to terminate a listing that hasn’t sold and re-list it immediately. Whenever that takes place, the old MLS number is replaced with a new MLS number and the number of days on market starts fresh.

As a result, it means that the stats that are typically report in the media and that most agents use are based on the listing’s days on market, not the property’s days on market. If there was just the one listing for a place before it sold, then the length of time it took to sell is accurate, but if a seller had trouble getting sold and it was terminated and relisted a number of times, the days on market would be understated.

During the early days of COVID, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board came up with a way to acknowledge the inaccuracy of this days on market (DOM) stat. Each month they release a report on how the average listing days on market differs from the average property days on market.

Property days on market, or PDOM, is what we see when we combine all of the recent listings for a property into one stat. We’re now starting to see market data that includes December and that means we can do a full year in review to see what happened in 2023, including with the actual (PDOM) days on market.

How long did it take in 2023 for properties to sell by area?

Let’s start with the data! The below chart has all of the TRREB municipalities and for each town or city, we see the average LDOM (listing days on market, which is the number most media stories report), followed by the actual average PDOM (property days on market, which is more accurate and reflects terminated and relisted properties), followed by the percentage difference between the two (how understated the LDOM actually is) and the difference in days between the two.

Let’s review what we found interesting in that data.

It actually took 47% longer to sell than most sources reported!

The above data shows each geographic area, but we also looked at the big picture.  When we take a look at all of the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board’s geographic areas covered (basically the GTA), the average days on market based on listings is shown at 19 days in 2023. However, when we look at the property days on market, which includes all those listings that actually were terminated and relisted (in some cases multiple times), the average days on market jumps up to 28 days. That’s nine days longer than most news stories would have reported, which works out to a whopping 47% longer!

Clearly we saw lots of properties be listed multiple times this year and if you only looked at the listing days on market, you would have been massively understating how long it took real estate to sell across the GTA.

Where in the GTA was the days on market most wrong?

If we look at the statistics for 2023 on a geographic basis, it was Halton Hills in the Halton area that saw the biggest difference between days on market versus property days on market. In 2023 Halton Hills saw an average days on market of 19 days, but that was understated by 11 days, as the property days on market was actually 30 days on market. That works out to the actual days on market for real estate there taking 58% longer than news stories would have you believe!

While Halton Hills had the biggest understating on a percentage basis, it was King, in York region, that had the biggest difference in terms of days. King showed it took real estate 29 days on average to sell in 2023, but when we look at the property days on market, that is a whopping 15 days understated, as it actually took 44 days on average.

Congratulations to Ajax for winning the most honest award for market stats!

If we look at where the reported days on market was closest to the actual days on market (PDOM), then Ajax in Durham region is the big winner. The average days on market in Ajax was 12 days according to listings and that’s just six days less than the 18 days we saw for the average property days on market.

It’s worth noting that how understated the actual (PDOM) days on market over the course of the year ranged from 26% to 58%, or from 6 days to 15 days. Put another way, even the most accurate data used in most media reports was off by about a week and if you added a couple weeks to any stat you read, you would have likely been pretty close.

When we look at the regions, Durham region was definitely the hottest and therefore most accurate region when it came to days on market. Basically, anywhere that properties sold in their first listing on market had the smallest gap between the two stats, and Durham region was the best in that regard.

There you have it – the actual, accurate data for where it takes the longest to sell as well as which markets were most misrepresented in news stories.

Terminating a listing and relisting it can be useful in a number of ways, including drawing fresh eyes onto a “new” listing, or avoiding having an improved (i.e. lowered) price go unnoticed because the listing itself is stale. While it can often make sense to terminate and relist, the typical use of listing days on market instead of the more accurate property days on market means that any stories that talk about how long it takes for real estate to sell should be viewed with significant distrust.

We’d very much prefer if TRREB and other real estate boards around the province stopped using listing days on market at all and switched completely to property days on market, but so far no one is following our advice!

If you’re looking to buy or sell real estate, make sure you work with agents who know when you can – and when you can’t – rely on the stats and give you useful advice. Get in touch with us to discuss your real estate needs!

A lot of real estate statistics are, by their very nature, backward looking.  We examine what sold and for how much, how long it took to sell and so on.  If we add in the delays of aggregating the data, we’re often giving analysis of what’s happening “now” when it really reflects what has happened in the last 30 to 45 days.

We actively work with buyers and sellers on a daily basis, and we definitely see differences from what the “latest” stats show compared to what we’re experiencing today.

While anecdotal descriptions of what a real estate market is like now are somewhat helpful, we can delve into current stats to get a more up to date understanding of how different markets are doing right now.  We’ve done exactly that for the GTA so that we can tell you what’s happening in the past week in each of these markets, and which market is the hottest right now.

We examined where homes are selling for the most over asking price now, where the lowest number of active listings are currently on the market and where homes are selling the quickest.  Put it all together and you get a sense of the hottest market in the GTA this week as well as where might be the next hot market!

Let’s get into it.

Where are homes selling for the most over asking?

In the past seven days (January 15^th to January 21^st, 2022) we had 31 freehold homes sell in the GTA for over 150% of asking price.  That means that if the home was listed at $1M, it sold for $1.5M.  That’s a huge premium over list price, even taking into account sellers listing below market value, and such high sale to list price ratios are clear indication of how hot a market is right now.

21 of the 31 sales over 150% took place in Durham Region, meaning it is absolutely the hottest market from this metric.  Toronto had six sales over 150%, Halton Region had two sales and Peel and York Regions each only had one sale over 150%.

If we look at the number of total sales in Durham Region, we see that we had 139 sales, which means that 15% of the homes that sold in the past week in Durham sold for over 150%.  That is one hot market!  The average sale to list price ratio overall in Durham was 131%, the highest in all of the GTA.

York Region was the coolest market overall, with one sale over 150% out of 178 sales in the past week.  Their average sale to list price ratio was 117%, also the lowest in the GTA in the last week.

Where are homes selling the fastest?

In the past seven days (January 15^th to January 21^st, 2022) the median days on market in the GTA was just 5.2 days.  With the number of transactions ranging from 98 (Halton) up to 178 (York), the median is a better indication of the speed and heat of the market than the average, which is prone to outliers influencing that number upward.

The hottest market on this metric was Peel Region, with a blistering four day median for a home to go from listed to sold.  Toronto and York were the “slowest” markets at a six days median, which tells us that across the GTA, things are moving far, far faster than normal.

Where are the fewest number of homes available for sale?

If we look at the number of freehold homes for sale right now (January 21, 2022), the lowest number of homes for sale is in Halton Region, with just 217 houses listed for sale as of this date.  The highest number of active homes is in Toronto, with 704 freehold homes for sale right now.

While it may seem like this means Halton is the hottest market right now based on the low level of homes for sale, we need to take population into account.  After all, if you have a smaller population, a smaller number of homes for sale doesn’t necessarily translate into it being a hot market.

We pulled the latest census numbers for population in the five areas that make up the GTA and used that to calculate the current number of homes for sale per 1,000 residents of the area.  When we look at the active listings from that perspective, Halton Region is actually in the middle of the pack, with 40 listings per 1,000 residents.

The actual hottest market based on listings per population is York Region, with just 25 listings currently for sale per 1,000 residents.  Toronto is the coolest market by this metric with 64 listings currently for sale per 1,000 residents.  The average number of homes for sale per 1,000 residents across the GTA is approximately 40 listings, which means York Region is definitely hotter than the GTA as a whole.

When we take into account where homes are selling for the highest percentage over asking, where they are selling in the quickest amount of time and where there are the fewest number of active listings for the population of the area, we have three different answers to where the hottest market is in the GTA.

• Durham Region is where you’re seeing the highest number of sales over 150% of asking and the highest overall average sale to list price ratio in the GTA.
• Peel Region is where homes are selling the quickest in the GTA.
• York Region is where there are the fewest homes per sale based on the population.

When we combine all of the data we reviewed, it tells us that Durham Region is the current hottest market in the GTA, but it appears it is about to lose its crown to Peel Region.  Markets change rapidly and that is the reason why its crucial to work with agents who understand what’s happening right now and know how to use that data to tell you what’s coming next.  If that sounds appealing, get in touch so we can talk next steps.

We’ve previously written about how the commonly used Days on Market stat is unreliable given we often see listings go up, fail to sell, and be terminated only to relist as a “new” listing.

Fortunately, the Toronto Region Real Estate Board (TRREB) also tracks a more reliable number, namely the property days on market, which takes into account such listings to give an accurate number of how long it actually takes for a property to sell, not just how long a particular listing for a property was on the MLS system.

The results for 2021 are actually quite surprising so, let’s get into it!

The winner is…Whitby!

From top to bottom, here are the average Property Days on Market in 2021 for each of the 33 areas within the TRREB boundaries.

The hottest market in all of the GTA last year was Whitby, with an average PDOM of just 9 days.  Ajax, Clarington and Oshawa are the next quickest markets, so Durham Region had a very fast paced year!

The slowest market in the GTA was King

At 36 days on average, King Township in York Region was the coldest market in the GTA.  In a very surprising result, the second slowest market last year, at 26 days on average, was Toronto Central!  Toronto West was also relatively slow, ranking 26 out of the 33 markets in the GTA.  The hottest area of Toronto in 2021 turned out to be Toronto East, but it still didn’t crack the top 10, showing up in 14^th place, with 15 days on market on average.

Toronto and York Region were slower than the GTA average!

Our average property days on market across all of the GTA in 2021 was 18 days and both the City of Toronto and York Region as a whole were colder than that average.  Toronto had an average of 22 days on market and York Region had an average of 20 days.

The hottest overall regions was Durham Region, with just 11 days on average.  Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge were your best bets if you were trying to buy in Durham at a relatively sedate 18 or 19 days on average.

The length of time it takes a property to sell (on average) is a very useful way to assess how hot a market is, and in 2021 Whitby was on fire!  With about 2,700 sales last year, that means it was a busy, fast-paced year for Realtors working in Whitby.

Regardless of whether you live in one of the quickest paced markets or one of the slowest, or even somewhere in the middle, we work hard to sell your home quickly, for the most amount of money and with the least amount of stress.  If that sounds appealing, get in touch so we can talk next steps.

The MLS system that we use to list real estate in Ontario allows real estate agents to terminate a listing that hasn’t sold and re-list it immediately.  Whenever that takes place, the old MLS number is replaced with a new MLS number and the days on market starts fresh.

As you can imagine, this means that the DOM stats are very unreliable as it is not unusual at all to see multiple attempts at selling a home on any given street, neighbourhood or building.

The Toronto Region Real Estate Board recently came up with a way to acknowledge the inaccuracy of the DOM stat.  We now have the ability to see not just the average listing days on market, but also the average property days on market.

Property days on market, or PDOM, is what we see when we combine all of the recent listings for a property into one stat.  When we look at that, we see that across the GTA, the listing days on market is 13 days and the property days on market is 18 days.  This means that homes actually take 38% longer to sell than what is commonly communicated in stats and media stories.

Let’s look into specific areas around the GTA to see what the real story is with days on market.

Across the GTA, it takes roughly 20% to 40% longer to sell than is commonly reported

If we start by looking at regions within the GTA, we see that Toronto leads the pack in terms of the most understated days on market.  When we account for listings that were terminated and relisted (which gives us the PDOM stat), we see that rather than the 16 days that is commonly reported, the actual days on market is 22 days.  That means that it takes 38% longer to sell than what most media stories report.

In terms of other areas, Peel is close behind at 36% and York is at 33%.  The rest of the GTA comes in at under 30%.  Dufferin County (effectively Orangeville) is the least overstated region at 22%.

Let’s look at specific municipalities now.

Toronto Central is the most understated, followed by…Caledon?

When we look at the 33 markets within the GTA, we see some surprising results.

Toronto Central is the most understated market in the GTA, reporting a listing days on market of 18 days, but an actual, property days on market of 26 days.  That means it actually takes 44% longer to sell in central Toronto than you would think based on the market stats that are commonly used.

Caledon comes in at a surprising second place, with homes taking 42% longer than what is commonly stated.  Instead of 12 days on average, the actual length of time it takes a property to sell in Caledon is 17 days.

At the bottom end of the scale we see a number of parts of Simcoe County.  Adjala-Tosorontio takes the prize for the least understated area in the GTA, coming in at just 6% higher, or just one day different.

It is surprising to see Burlington near the bottom of the list as well, meaning that you don’t see a lot of sellers in Burlington fail to sell and then relist.  The listing days on market is 12 and the property days on market is 14, so it only takes about 17% longer to sell than is commonly reported.

Deciphering real estate stats can be challenging and you need an expert to make sure you’re making decisions based on accurate information.  If you’re thinking about buying or selling real estate, let’s talk.