Toronto was ranked as the world’s “hottest” luxury market in 2014, according to a report from Christie's International Real Estate.
Toronto saw a 37 per cent increase in luxury home sales in 2014. It was the only location among the world’s top 10 markets to see a faster pace of luxury home sales over the last year, the report said.
A luxury home is defined by Christie’s International Real Estate has any property that is above $1M US dollars.
The report compared Toronto’s housing market to those of Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Sydney.
An “extremely low” supply of houses in Toronto pushed prices to approximately $1.2 million for “relatively average” houses, according to Christie’s.
Prices for houses in the luxury market in Toronto were priced at an average of $2.8 million.
The report found that Toronto homes worth $1.2 million or more spent less time on the market than those in any other top location, an average of 31 days. The second-fastest market was San Francisco, where homes in the same price range took 71 days to sell. The global average is 254 days, the report said.
“2014 was the Toronto market’s second best year on record,” realtor Justine Deluce said in the report released Thursday.
“If there had been more inventory, the record would easily have been shattered.”
According to the report, luxury residential home sales around the world were up by 16 per cent in 2014 over the previous year.
The report also says that after an “explosion” in urban luxury home sales growth in 2012 and 2013, the big story in 2014 was the “red hot” second-home resort markets.
North of Toronto, the Muskoka region saw a “marked increase” in luxury home sales, according to the report. Homes that cost a minimum of $2.4 million were particularly popular, jumping up 66 per cent from 2013.
