The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) released its assessment of recent land and registry information relating to foreign buyers, touting the growth in new real estate listings in recent months.

Although total sales in the TREB market area was down 3.2 per cent as compared to previous years, TREB’s president Larry Cerqua said Realtors had a 33.6 per cent increase in new listings on the MLS in April compared to spring of last year.

“The fact that we experienced extremely strong growth in new listings in April means that buyers benefited from considerably more choice in the marketplace,” Cerqua said.

“It is too early to tell whether the increase in new listings was simply due to households reacting to the strong double-digit price growth reported over the past year or if some of the increase was also a reaction to the Ontario Government’s recently announced Fair Housing Plan,” Cerqua said.

Jason Mercer, TREB’s director of market analysis, said in an announcement that he is encouraged to see the increase in new listings year-over-year.

“If new listings growth continues to pace sales growth moving forward, we will start to see more balanced market conditions," Mercer said. "It will likely take a number of months to unwind the substantial pent-up demand that has built over the past two years."

Mercer also said he expects the growth to continue through the summer months.

“Expect annual sales of price growth to remain well above the rate of inflation as we move through the spring and summer months,” Mercer said.