Well, there are a couple of items to address at the onset of today’s blog.

First, I’m certainly opening myself to more suggestions by responding to a Friday-commenter’s request for a blog post with exactly what he/she asked for.  What can I say?  The suggestion made me realize that by only providing the November data on “holdbacks” for houses on the east side, I’m merely telling part of the market’s story.

Secondly, the idea that I have an “east side bias” isn’t fair.  In fact, I’ve sold more homes on the west side than on the east side this fall, and this year.  The only reason I go to the east side quite often as a “default” of sorts is because it provides us with a great representation of the market.  There’s always ample data (ie. sales, and you’ll realize that as soon as I lay out the data in today’s blog), and the price point represents what a majority of freehold-buyers are looking for.

In terms of which area I prefer, I assure you, I have no preference.

So with that out of the way, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of today’s blog.

On Friday, I posted statistics about sales on the east side in November, and paid specific attention to which houses had “holdbacks” on offers (ie. the most common strategy for selling a freehold home, by under-pricing and setting an offer date).

There were a few takeaways, depending on exactly what you’re interested in.

But rather than rehash those now, I figured I would re-run the same ten “questions” about the market, referencing the west side this time, and then see how the data compares to the east side.

For your reference, I have chosen to look at freehold sales in W01, W02, W06, W07, and W08.

I didn’t want to look at W06, since it’s really pushing the boundaries of what one might consider “Toronto” or “the core,” but if we’re looking at areas of W08 that push the western boundary (ie. Markland Wood, Eringate-Centennial), then we may as well look at the whole lot.  We’ll break it down into “prime” locations later on.

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1) What percentage of sales were for houses with a “holdback” on offers?

36.1%.

Of the 122 homes, forty-four had a holdback on offers.

Compare this to the east side, which saw 50/100 with a holdback on offers.

I do believe that this is because there are specific locations on the west side which do not partake in the holdback strategy (for reasons we’ll get into), but for now, let’s follow the same outline as Friday.

2) Of the 44 sales, how many were via bully offer?

Five.

That’s 11.4%.

I find this very interesting, consider the data for the east end on Friday showed that 6/50 sales were via bully offer, or 12%.

We might not have a lot of similarities between the two areas by the time this is done, but I think you could argue a good case that the “bully offer acceptance rate” in the city of Toronto is around 12%.

3) How did the bully offer prices compare to the rest?

The average sale-to-list ratio for the 5 bully offer sales was 113%.

The average sale-to-list ratio for the other 39 sales was 109%.

Compare this to the figures of 115% and 114% respectively in the east-end areas we looked at on Friday, and I see even more of a pattern!

First, consider that there was a “premium” via the bully offer in both areas.  And while 1% vs. 4% might seem like a gap when compared together, in the context of the overall percentages, I consider there to be a nominal difference here.

Second, consider the average sale-to-list ratios, east-versus-west: 115% vs. 113% for properties sold via bullies, which again, is a rounding error.  And 114% vs 109%, which shows a gap, but nothing significant.

4) Was there a pattern among the houses bullied?

Unlike in Friday’s east-end analysis, where 5/6 properties that sold via bully offer were under $1,000,000, and thus a pattern could be identified, there is no pattern in the west end.

The list prices of the five properties that sold via bully offer: $699,888, $849,000, $1,290,000, $1,499,000, $2,498,000.

And these were in four different communities.

Not really.  But perhaps we could try to find one.

5) What was the average sale price for the houses with no offer date?

97%.

The figure for the east-end in Friday’s blog was 99%.

No real difference here, except that there were a handful of really, really low sales, ie. 88% of list price (a figure we almost never see), and we didn’t see anything like this on the east side.

6) Did any of the houses without offer dates sell over list?

Yes, this time it was 7.

7 out of 44, or 15.9%.

This is about two-thirds of what we saw in the east-end, as 12/50 houses over there sold for over asking, with no offer date.

It’s also important to note that the highest sale-to-list ratio here in the west end, for a property that sold over asking without an offer date, was 112%.  This was 127% in the east end.

But the average sale-to-list ratios line up well: 107% on the east side, 105% on the west side.

7) What was the difference in timing for those listings with/without holdbacks?

The average days on market for properties with a holdback was 9.6 days.

The average days on market for properties without a holdback was 21.0 days.

These numbers were 6.8 and 18.9 respectively on the east side.

To be honest, and this might sound like absolute lunacy, but I see a pattern among the west end listings where many of them aren’t updated or marked “sold” for 2-3 days after the offer date.  I suspect perhaps the agents run a different show out there?  That’s generalizing, but save for the top dogs in High Park and Bloor West Village who are on the ball (I checked…) I saw a lot of fly-by-nighter agents taking their sweet time to update listings on the west end.

So maybe that explains why, when most of us hold-back offers for exactly seven days, we’re seeing 6.8 days on the east side, and 9.6 days on the west side.

Or maybe I’m making something out of nothing.

Also interesting is that the average DOM for properties without a holdback on offers is only 2 days, or 10%, more on the west side.  That’s still within a reasonable range of difference, in my opinion.

8) What was the difference in average list price?  Any inferences to be drawn with regards to strategy?

The average list price for houses with a holdback on offers was $1,060,450.

The average list price for houses without a holdback was $1,323,470.

These numbers were $930,180 and $1,202,276 respectively on the east side.

Once again, see a pattern here when we look at east versus west!

On the west side, the average price of a house without a holdback on offers was 24.8% higher than the average price of a house with a holdback.  And on the east side?  29.6%.

24.8% vs. 29.6%.  Again, we’re looking at a very comparable range!

And as with the east end, we see that the more expensive a house, the less likely there’s a holdback.

On the west side, only one of the 18-most-expensive homes had a holdback on offers.

59 houses were listed under $1,000,000, and 25 of those had a holdback on offers – 42.4%.

63 houses were listed over $1,000,000, and 19 of those had a holdback on offers – 30.2%.

This absolutely bucks the trend from the east-end data, where we saw a whopping 70.1% of homes priced under $1M result in a holdback on offers, against only 22.9% of homes over $1M.  I suspect this is because of a few very weak areas, which I’ll address shortly.

9) Was there any difference in listing strategy by house type?

90 houses were detached, and 29 had offer dates – 32.2%.

32 houses were semi-detached or row-houses, and 15 had offer dates – 46.9%.

As with point #8, the west end sees far less difference here than the east end.  71.1% of semi-detached or row-houses on the east side had holdbacks on offers.

10 Any difference between E01, E02, and E03 themselves?

There were 16 sales in W01, and 6 had holdbacks on offers – 37.5%

There were 27 sales in W02, and 18 had holdbacks on offers – 66.7%.

There were 28 sales in W06, and 7 had holdbacks on offers – 25.0%.

There were 10 sales in W07, and 3 had holdbacks on offers – 30.0%.

There were 41 sales in W08, and 10 had holdbacks on offers – 24.4%.

As I suspected from the onset, W06 (Mimico, Long Branch Alderwood, New Toronto), and W08 (bordering Mississauga to the west, Eglinton to the north, and Humber River to the east) are just not in the same league as the areas closer to the core.

And consider that of the 10 properties in W08, out of 41, that had holdbacks on offers, the six-lowest-priced properties were all included in those 10.

The same isn’t true of W06.  There are all kinds of detached bungalows selling under-asking.

As a refresher, here is a map of the West TREB districts:

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So there you have it, folks.

I see a lot of similarities in terms of how the market works, ie. the percentages of bully offers, the sale-to-list ratios, the corresponding difference in list price for houses with different listing strategies, et al.

I actually find these similarities exceptionally interesting!  Some of them point to a highly efficient market, one where you could probably come up with a highly-predictive model if you put enough time into it.

As for the differences, I think that in a nutshell, we can say that the east side is busier than the west side, and that even takes into account the prime areas like Roncesvalles, High Park, Junction, Bloor West Village, and Kingsway.

Of course, much of this depends on price as well.

Can you compare a $1,800,000 house in High Park to a $950,000 house in Danforth Village?  Should we expect these houses to be sold in the same way, with the same strategy?

Note that I said the east side is “busier” than the west side above, I didn’t say “hotter.”

I might argue that the east side is, in fact, hotter.  But that’s completely subjective, and the higher demand would be based purely on the lower price point for homes that area closer to downtown, ie. Danforth Village versus Mimico.

So thanks to my reader for the suggestion, and I hope this helps some of you add to your bank of market knowledge.