Average price of a detached Toronto house tops $1M

CTV National News: Average prices top $1M Peter Akman reports on how the availability of credit may be the reason the supercharged housing market is just getting hotter.

Toronto's skyrocketing real estate prices have hit a new high, with the average price of a detached house in the city surpassing $1 million.

The average cost of a detached home hit the seven-figure mark for the first time last month, according to numbers from the Toronto Real Estate Board. That price was up 8.9 per cent over last year and helped drive the overall average selling price of a Toronto home up to $596,163.

The Toronto real estate scene was a seller's market in February, with more people buying homes and fewer people putting them up on the market. The number of homes sold went up by 11.3 per cent, despite there being 8.7 per cent fewer on the market, compared to February 2014.

The average cost of a detached home in the city came in at $1,040,018 last month, while semi-detached homes went for an average of $702,305, up 4.9 per cent over last year.

The strong gains for Toronto's detached and semi-detached markets were offset by a fall in sale prices for townhouses and condo apartments in the city. The average selling price of a townhouse fell by seven per cent, while condos sale prices dipped by 0.9 per cent.

Rising prices have pushed some prospective home buyers to eye property in the city's suburbs, but they too have been affected by the housing boom.

Residential sale prices were up across the board in the Greater Toronto Area's 905 area code regions. The average price of a semi-detached home surged by 11.6 per cent in the GTA, while fully detached went up 8.5 per cent, condos spiked 10.9 per cent and townhouses were up by eight per cent.

In the nearby Durham Region, the average price for a detached home is more than $467,000.

David Batori is a real estate agent who has been selling homes in Toronto’s north end for 25 years.

He says he has seen prices in area change drastically.

"When I started, you couldn't give a house away … in some of these north Toronto neighbourhoods … so yes, I'm completely surprised," he told CTV Toronto.

Now, he added, building lots "are selling for north of a million dollars."

In January, Deutsche Bank AG warned that homes in Canada are overvalued by 63 per cent, and that homeowners are "in serious trouble" due to rising debt levels. But the Bank of Canada's surprise decision to cut interest rates that same month, has given Canadians incentive to keep buying property.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Heather Wright