In 1989, when I first started selling houses in Hillcrest Village, a recessionary market took hold which saw actual prices drop by almost 40% until 1996 when the market reversed itself and has continued its upward climb ever since. Continuing in our #josieloveshillcrest 25 year anniversary theme, we thought a bit of 25 year trivia would be interesting to see.
For clarification, Toronto Real Estate Board’s boundaries refer to Hillcrest Village south of St Clair as “Wychwood”, Hillcrest Village north of St Clair as “Humewood” and north of Vaughan to Eglinton as “Cedarvale” but has grouped the latter two areas together and refers to them as Humewood/Cedarvale.
The average sale price has gone up about 360% from 1996 to 2014 which translates into 7% compounded annually. That is the average but many houses in prime streets have gone up much more than 7% annually.
The average sale price has gone up about 315% from 1996 to 2014 which translates into 6.2% compounded annually. Again, that is the average but many houses in prime streets have gone up much more than 6.2% annually.
This shows completely different markets with limited competition for houses before 1996 when buyers were able to take their time, do proper due diligence and negotiate instead of compete for a house. After 19 years of an exhaustive seller’s market, sometimes I wish the market would revert to a more balanced market making it a “win/win” for both buyers and sellers.
From 1989 to 1996 the market was clearly a buyer’s market where buyers had more than a few hours to consider making the biggest purchase of their life. Today, some buyers take more time to buy a pair of shoes than they do a house with many houses selling within hours or days of coming on the market.
This represents the dominant brokerages for number of units sold according to TREB MLS stats for years in question. Sutton Group and The Josie Stern Team have been the most consistent players in the area for over two decades.
