The new home prices “reached record highs” last month amid falling inventory levels and the ongoing pandemic, according to the latest report from the GTA’s Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD).

BILD, which represents more than 1,300 land development and home building companies in the Greater Toronto Area, released its new home sale and price figures from July of 2021.

For newly-built single-family homes in particular, the benchmark price (defined by realtors as the price of a typical home in an area) reached an average of $1,517,841 — a flabbergasting hike of 28.4 per cent over the same time last year.

This category includes not only detached homes, but linked and semi-detached houses and townhouses.

New condominium apartments, meanwhile, posted a benchmark price of $1,091,648 in July, according to BILD, representing an increase of 9.8 per cent since July of 2020.

Remaining inventory decreased in July compared to the previous month for both condominium apartments and single-family homes, to 9,483 units and 1,598 units respectively. Remaining inventory includes units in preconstruction projects, in projects currently under construction, and in completed buildings.

This may in part explain why overall sales fell last month — new single-family home sales were down 14 percent from the 10-year average and new condo sales fell 11 per cent, according to the home market intelligence specialists at Altus Group, which provides data to BILD.

“Low inventory levels for both condominium apartments and single-family homes are a persistent problem in the GTA that exerts upward pressure on prices,” said BILD President and CEO Dave Wilkes when releasing the July figures.

“We are encouraged to see that the issues of housing supply and affordability are prominent in the lead-up to the federal election — as they must be in elections at every level if we are to build the housing people in our region need, at prices they can afford. What we need is an alignment of federal, provincial and municipal housing policy on market-rate housing.”