Toronto, Vancouver housing markets continue record-setting pace

The Toronto area's hot housing market continued in March with monthly sales up more than 16 per cent year over year, leading to a record first quarter.

Figures released Tuesday by the Toronto Real Estate Board, showed that within the City of Toronto the average price of a detached house sold in March was $1.17 million, while the average sale price of a semi-detached house during the month was over $817,000.

For the GTA as a whole, the average March sale price for a detached home was more than $910,000, while the average price for a semi was over $637,000.

Jason Mercer, TREB's Director of Market Analysis said demand was strong, but the supply of listings "continued to aggravate many would-be home buyers."

"We could have experienced even stronger sales growth were it not for the constrained supply of listings, especially in the low-rise market segments.

TREB said listing on its MLS system were down in March and in the first quarter when compared to the same periods in 2015.

Vancouver red hot too

The release of the Toronto housing figures came a day after data out of Vancouver showed that city's real estate market is also red hot.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said residential property sales in March were up 24 per cent from February.

"March was the highest selling month the (board) has ever recorded," said president Dan Morrison in a news release.

The composite benchmark price for all residential properties across Metro Vancouver is $815,000, a 23.2 per cent hike in one year. 

The average price for detached properties soared to above $1.34 million in the same period, a leap of 27.4 per cent.

"Odds are that if this kind of price growth (especially Vancouver) continues, it will end badly – but that still looks to be sometime down the road," said Robert Kavcic, a senior economist at BMO Financial Group.