OPINION: September’s decline of the national composite HPI is the largest in seven years (top chart), due to the fall of Toronto’s index. The Toronto’s unsmoothed index (see note on methodology next page), has shrunk in each of the last three months, for a cumulative loss of 7.5% (middle chart). Many might worry about the fact that the last time we saw a string of monthly declines of such magnitude was during the last economic recession. They should not. Market conditions on Toronto’s home resale market went from being very tight at the beginning of the year to balanced, as suggested by the active-listings-to-sales ratio which, at 2.5, stood at its average long-term value in September (bottom chart). The ratio is still very far from its peak level of 6.5 experienced during the last economic recession. Moreover, market conditions appear to have stabilized over the last four months. If that is the case, a large part of the price correction to be seen in the Toronto home resale market might be behind us.

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