December the Best Ever For Homes in Canada and Toronto

Things are looking bright this winter, even with the snow flying across the country. Early estimates show that this past December was the strongest in history in terms of the sales of existing homes. December actually helped to increase the entire year of 2009 by several percentage points and it continues the recovery trend that started in July 2009.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, 27,744 homes were sold in December and that is a whopping 72 percent above the number of homes that were sold in December of 2008.

 In December, the price of a home increased by 19 percent when compared with December of 2008. Home prices reached $337,410 in December, and that helped bring the average home sale price for the year to $320,333, which is five percent above 2008 as a whole. In addition, total sales in 2009 were 7.7 percent above that of 2008 and 2009 was the fourth best year in history for home sales. Naturally, with less home starts in 2009 because of the poor year that 2008 was, there were more buyers than there were homes. With this seller’s market, the price of homes went up significantly. This trend is expected to level off and slightly reverse by June when the interest rate is expected to increase.

 In Toronto, home sales for the year were 17 percent better than they were in 2008. As well, the average price of a home in Toronto for 2009 was $395,460, which is four percent above what homes were valued at in 2008. This average home price also puts Toronto second in the country for highest priced homes, right next to Vancouver.

 Overall, you can expect January and February to continue with the higher real estate prices that were seen in the later-half of 2008. However, by March, building permits will begin to be filed in record numbers and more homes will be built. This will cause the housing market to see a drop in prices as there is equilibrium between the number of homes being sold and the number of buyers out there. This is good because if there is too much disparity between buyers and sellers, the housing market can collapse. By the time the interest rate increases, everything will have evened itself out, but the market will continue to grow, just at a slower pace.