Toronto home sales have fallen off a cliff as we hit the middle of April.
Data provided by Zoocasa shows that the week of April 8 to 14 saw the crushing reality of the COVID-19 finally hit home. While the first week of April also saw a major drop off, the past week saw numbers fall off between 80-90% year-over-year.
READ: Canadian Housing Activity Will See Even Larger Declines in April: RBC
According to Zoocasa, a total of just 30 detached and semi-detached houses were sold in the City of Toronto. During the same week last year, 230 were sold. That's an 85% year-over-year drop. The GTA took a similar hit, seeing an 80% y-o-y decline in detached and semi-detached houses sold.
Condos were not immune either, with both apartments and townhouses falling 86% y-o-y in Toronto and 87% y-o-y across the GTA.
Tomorrow will mark exactly one month since the Ontario officially declared a state of emergency in the province, and that state of emergency was just extended until May 12.
The Bank of Canada has just said this will be the sharpest downturn on record, while March saw the country's GDP shrink by a record-breaking 9%. By the end of last week, more than one million Canadians had already lost their jobs.
Nothing, and it seems no one, is immune to the economic crisis COVID-19 has brought with it – not Toronto home sales or even home prices.
Just remember though, as bad as the numbers were through March, April is the cruellest month.
