The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) recently released their commercial leasing and resale housing figures for the month of August, and it appears that a strong summer is closing on a high note, with numbers for both commercial leasing and residential resale exceeding last year's figures for the same time period.

Bay Street in Toronto's Financial District, image by Jack Landau

TREB reported 529,116 square feet of space leased on a per square foot net basis through the Toronto MLS system in August, an 8.4% increase from 487,916 square feet leased in August 2013. The average per square foot net lease rate for industrial properties was up by almost 12% from a year ago, while the average commercial/retail lease rate increased by 13.5%. In contrast, the average office lease rate was down by 9.2%.

A slight dip was also recorded in the sale of combined industrial, commercial/retail and office properties sold through the Toronto MLS system in August 2014. There were 51 sales in total versus the 55 sales were reported during the same period last year and average sale prices on a per square foot basis were down year-over-year in August for the industrial and commercial/retail segments, by 12.6% and 11.6% respectively.

Resale housing numbers saw an increase compared to last year with 7,600 sales through the Toronto MLS system in the month of August, a 2.8% from the 7,391 transactions reported in August of last year.  Year-to-date sales through the end of August totalled 65,454, a sizeable increase of 6.5% compared to the same period in 2013. The average selling price in August 2014 was $546,303, marking an 8.9% increase from the average of $501,677 reported in August 2013.  The year-to-date average price through August was $562,504, up 8.5% from last year's August figures.

“The number of listings in August was down in comparison to last year, while the number of sales increased.  This means that sellers’ market conditions remained in place with a lot of competition between buyers.  This is why we continued to see strong price growth last month.  Looking forward, if sales growth continues to outstrip listings growth, the average selling price should continue to increase on a year-over-year basis,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Director of Market Analysis