Toronto housing market smashes records across the board in 2016

Toronto's real estate market continues to soar, and 2016 was a historic year. The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) announced that for the second year in a row, we smashed a record for home sales.

TREB released its 2016 numbers today. There were 113,133 home sales last year - that's up 11.8 per cent in comparison to 2015. The average price of home in Toronto (including condos and semi-detached houses) rose to $740,685, or up more than 12 per cent since the previous year.

“A relatively strong regional economy, low unemployment and very low borrowing costs kept the demand for ownership housing strong in the GTA, as the region’s population continued to grow in 2016,” said TREB president Larry Cerqua in a news release.

It continues to be a seller's market out there as the demand for new listings far outweighs the supply of houses on the market - according to CBC News, the city hitting a 15-year low in December.

And we saw this play out in real time last month when an unremarkable suburban house in Vaughan garnered 50 offers before selling for $400,000 over asking.