There are some people who love statistics, and so, in case you are one of them, here are a few real estate tidbits I jotted down from a recent meeting with “Condo Guru” Barry Lyon:

·       Single dwelling family land is getting scarce. The new “single” dwelling is a townhouse, which has proven to be a great starter home for the first 3 to 5 years of a young family.

·       The average difference in price between new sales (pre-construction) and resales is $90,000.

·       The average $/sq ft for new sales is $440/sq ft.

·       In 2013, by making units smaller, the prices remained flat. In 2011 the average sq ft of a condo was 850 sq ft; today it is 800 sq ft.

·       Mortgage companies do not like to finance units with less than 500 sq ft.

·       Some units today are as small as 289 sq ft (eg. Smart House Condos).

·       Five years ago, there were 100 individual developers. In 2013, there were 213, which is really too many, leaving many unsold pre-construction units.

·       There were 172,000 high-rise units completed in the GTA between 2000 and 2013.

·       In 2014, there will be incentives from developers to sell the units. Since I am familiar with pre-construction sales, I would be pleased to help you negotiate with the developer.

·       As single family housing becomes too expensive, people are pushed into renting and condos.

·       Toronto has 303 High-rise Development Applications for 135,000 proposed units. For all of GTA, there are 502 applications for 240,900 units.

·       Markham has most applications in the 905 GTA.

·       Architects are very busy!

·       Condos in Toronto are not turning over as much, as the baby boomers tend to stay put.

·       Immigrants want to own property and buy a condo ASAP with the idea to buy a house later.

·       Square footage of office space per person is shrinking. A standard size used to be 250 sq ft per employee. Today it is becoming 150 sq ft per person.

·       People like downtown lifestyle.

·       60 to 70 percent of condos are rentals.

·       The rental vacancy rent in Toronto is still under 2 percent.