It may take most of us a while to get re-energized after the holidays, but there was one group of people who didn't let a little excess celebration get in the way of moving on in the new year. Greater Toronto-area house hunters were out buying up real estate, to the tune of 1,749 sales of existing homes in the first two weeks of this year, the Toronto Real Estate Board says. This was almost double the 888 sales recorded for the same period last year (granted that was when the market was suffering the agonies of the recession).
"It is important to consider that base-year effect. We're comparing a market well into recovery versus a market that was going through a recession," says Jason Mercer, TREB's senior manager of market analysis. "The second half of 2009 definitely saw a very strong rebound right through December and ... that has continued in the first couple of weeks of January."
Taking a broader perspective, this January's half-month numbers are almost back to the 1,776 sales recorded in the first 15 days of 2008 – which followed the record year of 2007.
"This says that the vigour of the market we have seen over the last several months continues in early 2010. The market does not appear to have let up entering the new year," says Robert Hogue, senior economist at RBC Economics.
The average price for homes sold in the GTA in the first two weeks of January was $395,307. This was up on the average of $332,495 for the same period in 2009. In the first two weeks of 2008, the average value of the sales was $367,574. [ Read more->]
Helen Morris, National Post
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Helen Morris, National Post
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