I know that this sounds ridiculous but it's true. With all the new construction of the past decade, so many towers going up... there just aren't enough condos in the resale market for sale. The typical August will have 1200 condos for sale in the C01 downtown district. The August number for 2016 was 763. That's unbelievably low and completely stunning to me. With all the new construction... shouldn't we see more available hitting the resale market than so much fewer?

The above graph shows how extreme this number is but most importantly notice that the troughs in previous years are in December/ January... not August! This is very odd and it shows the skyrocketing demand to live in a downtown condo. Each year there are about 18,000 new construction condo suites completed and these should be adding to the resale market inventory to meet demand but it just hasn't been enough.

This graph shows the situation even more obviously. The demand is high and the inventory is extremely low which has pushed the ratio to match the highest levels we've measured. This can only send prices in one direction.

The median price for August was up from $430,000 to $432,950. I don't believe the impact of such a low inventory is showing yet in the prices but I believe we'll see that more next month. It takes a little time for supply/demand ratio at these levels to translate into higher prices and then the reporting to be published. I really wasn't expecting 2016 to be such a strong market for condos but we're happy to see our friends and clients do so well with their investments.

Buyers should consider that delaying their search will most likely end up paying more. With inventory levels this low, prices will continue their rise.