Toronto home sales in December up 14% compared to one year ago

TORONTO -- December home sales in Toronto were up almost 14 per cent compared with a year earlier, the Toronto Real Estate Board said Monday.

The board said sales through its multiple listings service totalled 4,078 for the month, up from 3,582 in December 2012.

Sales for all of 2013 totalled 87,111, up about two per cent compared with 85,496 in 2012.

"After a slow start to the year, sales growth accelerated to a brisk pace in the second half of 2013," Toronto Real Estate Board president Dianne Usher said.

"Despite the inclement weather in December, we finished the year with a respectable gain in transactions compared to 2012."

The average price for a home sold in December was $520,398, up 8.9 per cent compared with $477,756 in December 2012.

New listings for the Toronto market in December were down by almost four per cent over the same period.

The results for Toronto followed a report last week by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver that sales for December totalled 1,953, up 71 per cent from 1,142 a year ago.

For the full year, the Vancouver board said sales of detached, attached and apartment properties in 2013 reached 28,524, up 14 per cent from 25,032 sales in 2012.

"Home sales quietly improved last year compared to 2012, although the volume of activity didn't compare to some of the record-breaking years we experienced over the last decade," Vancouver board president Sandra Wyant said.

The total for 2013 was the third lowest for the region in the last 10 years.