Nothing says autumn more than the CNE, so I guess we can start talking about the fall housing market, assuming we will be able to tell the difference from the hot summer market, itself a continuation of a very strong spring market.

There used to be the notion of a spring and fall new housing market in the GTA, but over the past several years the market has been active at any time, depending on when builders choose to release new low-rise communities or condo buildings.

As it happens this year, builders chose the summer to launch new projects resulting in a 36 per cent increase in new home sales in July, following a 54 per cent increase in June, according to RealNet Canada Inc.

In July, it was sales of new single-detached, semi-detached and townhomes in the 905 Regions that led the way, with sales up 64 per cent over the previous July. The high-rise market was also up by a very respectable 20 per cent compared with July 2010.

While the low-rise market was strong across the board (except for Durham Region), the high-rise strength was concentrated in Toronto, as usual, but also in York Region, predominantly Markham, where high-rise sales more than doubled, up 132 per cent over last July. Whereas the regions have accounted for just 23 per cent of high-rise sales so far this year, that percentage jumped to 42 per cent last month.

Based on my various sources, August sales, which will be reported around this time in September, will look a lot like June and July, confirming my view that we now have a four seasons housing market in the Greater Toronto Area.

Stephen Dupuis is President and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and can be found on Twitter (twitter.com/bildgta), Facebook (facebook.com/bildgta), YouTube (youtube.com/bildgta) and BILD’s official online blog (bildblogs.ca).