Sale of $13.8-Million Home Caps Blockbuster Spring
Just sold: an 18,000-square-foot Bridle Path mansion listed at $13.8-million.
GTA luxury home sales over $1-million
The gated home at 32 High Point Road features six bedrooms, 12 bathrooms and five-car garage. Its interior boasts vaulted ceilings, mahogany and cherry woods, limestone and marble floors, and 14-inch plaster mouldings. It sits on two beautifully manicured acres and includes a wine cellar, servants' quarters and an elevator.
For all its abundant charms, the house hadn't sold when previously listed. But the sale now, completed just 14 days after relisting, marks and important turning point: It is the first home listed over $10-million that has sold in Toronto in more than a year.
It is also part of what has turned out to be a blockbuster spring for the city's high-end real-estate market.
May, 2009, ended as the strongest month on record for luxury property sales in the Greater Toronto Area, one of Canada's leading real-estate-organizations said yesterday.
A total of 273 properties valued at more than $1-million were sold last month, up 6 per cent from May of last year.
That's more than any month since the Toronto Real Estate Board began keeping count, ReMax Ontario-Atlantic Canada said, shattering the previous record of 266 set in May, 2007.
"Consumer confidence has definitely returned to the market," ReMax spokeswoman Christine Martysiewicz said.
Real-estate agents credit low interest rates and a rosier economic forecast for the recent bounce. Luxury sales have been steadily increasing through the year, jumping from just 28 in January to 216 in April, Ms. Martysiewicz said.
"You have a lot of people who've been sitting on the fence," said Toronto Real Estate Board president Maureen O'Neill, who is also a broker with Bosley Real Estate Inc. Now that recession fears are easing, those fence-sitters are getting back in the game.
Barry Cohen, a ReMax Realtron broker who specializes in high-end home listings and oversaw the sale of 32 High Point Road, said he started noticing an increase in calls from interested buyers around the end of March.
He is currently showing the house next door to 32 High Point, listed at $23-million - the most expensive in the city.
Elli Davis, Royal LePage's top agent in Toronto, said some buyers who may have wanted to purchase high-end homes have been waiting until they felt the time was right.
"Many people put their plans on hold," said Ms. Davis, who has sold at least six $1-million-plus homes in the past three months. She said buyers who were "waiting for the bottom to hit" believe now is the time to act.
Agents have also noticed buyers who have seen their portfolios pummelled by a volatile stock market looking to real estate as an alternative investment.
"I think a lot of people lost faith in the stock market," Ms. Davis said. While home values in the city have decreased, "mathematically, clearly real estate won."
Unlike many U.S. cities, whose markets were crippled by the recession, the average home price in the GTA fell less than 1 per cent from May, 2008, to May, 2009, Ms. Martysiewicz said.
And while overall home sales are down year-to-date from 2008, at this rate agents expect final 2009 sales to match or surpass last year's figures.
Heidi Miller, a Toronto chartered accountant and mother of two, purchased a home in the Armour Heights neighbourhood in March.
She and her husband hadn't been planning to move until they saw that a roomy home in their ideal location had been put on the market for $890,000, which they thought was a steal. They jumped and, after a bidding war with two other interested buyers, won the sale.
"We saw an absolutely amazing opportunity," she said. "It's truly a great time to buy a house."
Royal LePage Ltd. Brokerage
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