Houses by Chris Tyler

Greater Toronto REALTORS® reported some 10,850 homes that changed hands across the Greater Toronto Area in May 2012. The average selling price of a home in the 416 area exceeded the $568,768 of the previous month. The number is higher compared to the 9,766 sales in May of 2011, when the average home price in the 416 area reached $536,655.

"Sales growth in the 905 area code was stronger than growth in the City of Toronto across all major home types. While lower average prices are certainly one factor that has contributed to this trend, recent polling also suggests that the City of Toronto's land transfer tax has also prompted many households to look outside of the City for their ownership housing needs," explained Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) President Richard Silver.

The average price of a resale house in the GTA hit $516,787 last month — higher by 6.5 per cent than in May 2011. The monthly house sales figures released by TREB show that the price growth was caused by the low-rise house market. The number of new properties coming up for sale across the GTA in May reached almost 20,000.

"Strong competition between buyers seeking to purchase low-rise home types drove strong price growth in May," said Jason Mercer, TREB's Senior Manager of Market Analysis.

These are quite promising results for the future predictions. According to Mercer, we can expect price moderation in the upcoming period supposing that the new listings continue increasing at their current pace for the remaining months of 2012.