Fortress Real Developments (Fortress) has sold two development sites, located in Richmond Hill and Pickering, which were originally purchased in April.

The Richmond Hill development had already received OMB approval in early 2017 for 22 luxury three-storey freehold townhomes, while the Brock Village project in north Pickering, which was originally intended to become a mixed-use commercial and residential development, had been reimagined as a 59-unit townhouse project.

The supply of ground-oriented new housing in the Greater Toronto Area has fallen to its lowest point since 2007, according to Altus Group data. In March 2017, there were only 932 new low-rise homes available to buyers, a decline of 68 per cent year-over-year. Developers and new home builders hoping to help fix this problem had been enquiring on the availability of sites throughout the development community.

“With over 70 active real estate developments in our portfolio, we were comfortable disposing of a couple of our smaller sites, especially given the generous offers received for the Towns on Hall and Brock Village projects,” said Jawad Rathore, Fortress CEO, in a press release. “We were happy to extract the value created through the approval and assembly on these sites, and offer thanks to our partners and consultants for the realization of our planning objectives.”

The lack of supply is one of the reasons the prices of new homes continue to climb steadily in the GTA. The Altus Group reported that in March 2017, the average price of a new low-rise home topped $1.1 million, an increase of 32 per cent year-over-year.