Real estate signs sit outside a condominium building on Lake Shore Blvd. West in Toronto.Matthew Sherwood/The Globe and Mail
Calgary might have the hottest housing market in the country right now, and Vancouver's might be the priciest, but Toronto is tops when it comes to the speed with which homes are selling.
The homes that sold in the Toronto area last month were on the market for an average of 20 days. Homes that sold in and around Calgary, in contrast, were on the market for an average of 34 days before they sold.
In other markets homes generally take longer to sell. The average number of days on the market for homes in Greater Vancouver that sold in April was 43. Homes in Ottawa are taking an average of 45 days to sell. Edmonton homes were on the market an average of 42 days, in Regina 34 days.
In Montreal, single family homes were taking a whopping 91 days to sell, while condos were taking an average of 113 days.
I've gathered this information from local real estate boards in each city. Here's a bit more detail:
Toronto:
The average number of days that homes were on the market was 20 for both the Greater Toronto Area and in the city itself. But there were variations – for example, it was 14 in Whitby and 44 in New Tecumseh. There are also differences depending on the type of home – detached houses downtown Toronto took an average of 14 days to sell, while condos took 28. Year-to-date for all types of homes in and around the city the average is just 24 days.
Calgary:
Homes are selling faster, but it hasn't caught up to Toronto. Homes in the area in and around the city were on the market for an average of 34 days before selling last month, while homes in the city itself took 27 days. Year-to-date homes in the Calgary area have taken 33 days to sell, while in the city itself the number is 30 (down from 37 a year earlier). Single family homes in the city itself were on the market for an average of 25 days before selling in April (down from 31 a year earlier), while condos were on the market for 34 days (down from 41).
Ottawa:
Homes were on the market for an average of 45 days before they sold in April. That's a few days less than the homes that sold in March.
Edmonton:
Edmonton's homes were on the market for an average of 42 days, an improvement over the 49 days it took them to sell on average a year ago. Year-to-date homes have taken an average of 48 days to sell, down from 55 in the same period during 2013. Condos that sold in April were on the market for an average of 46 days, down from 58 a year earlier. Detached homes were on the market for an average of 38 days, down from 44.
Regina:
Homes that sold in April had been on the market for an average of 34 days, down from 35 a year earlier. They sold at an average of 97.5 per cent of the most recent asking price, compared to 97.2 per cent a year earlier.
Montreal:
Single family homes that sold in April were on the market for an average of 91 days, which was up by 9 days from a year earlier. Condominiums took an average of 113 days to sell, which was up 15 days.
Vancouver:
The average days on the market for homes that sold in Greater Vancouver last month was 43, down from 56 days a year earlier. Year-to-date it has been taking detached homes an average of 47 days to sell and condos an average of 48 days.
"Despite all the hype in markets like Calgary and Vancouver, the GTA is the only real estate market in Canada where houses are selling like hotcakes," says Eva Blay-Silverberg, a communications professional who has been analysing data in the real estate industry for more than a decade.