cityscape
Duly Quoted: Ann Hannah, Toronto Real Estate Board
“Buyers continue to face the substantial upfront cost associated with the City of Toronto’s unfair Land Transfer Tax… This goes a long way in explaining the disproportionate decline in sales in the City versus surrounding regions.”
—Toronto Real Estate Board president Ann Hannah, in a statement regarding GTA home sales in June, which declined by 5.4 per cent compared to this time last year. More specifically, the TREB reports that “The year-over-year decline was largest in the City of Toronto, where sales were down by 13 per cent compared to June 2011. Sales in the rest of the Toronto Real Estate Board market area were comparable to a year ago.” (The average selling price of $508,622, meanwhile, was up by 7.3 per cent.) It’s an interesting theory, given that the land transfer tax took effect February 1, 2008—quite the delayed reaction, it would seem.