More houses for sale in August in Burlington, Milton, Oakville

There’s an obvious strain on Canada’s housing supply, much of which is caused by a growing number of residents, a shortage of new homes being built, and a lack of affordable options.

In January, there were two months of inventory for the Greater Toronto Area, while in August months of inventory edged up to 2.2 months. This is hardly a drastic change and paints the picture that inventory levels have not increased much since January.

However, if the numbers more closely scrutinized, the housing supply in the GTA is actually improving, especially compared to the start of the year.

To learn exactly how inventory levels have changed throughout 2023 in the GTA, Zoocasa, an online real estate company, analyzed the number of active listings for detached properties, semi-detached properties, townhouses, and condos in each region of the GTA from January 2023 to August 2023.

The City of Toronto started off the year with 865 active listings for detached homes, the highest number of active listings for January since before the pandemic. That number increased by 57 per cent to 1,358 active listings for detached homes in August, the highest number of active listings for August since 2020.

In Halton, there were significant increases in active listings between January and August of this year as well.

In Burlington, listings rose from 147 to 234. In Oakville they climbed from 186 to 343. The jump in Milton was from 85 to 138 and in Halton Hills listings went from 84 to 126.

Compared to August 2022, 2021, and 2020, active detached home listings are up in almost every city, showing supply in the GTA is recovering to pre-pandemic levels.