2006  begins  with  a  bang  

February  6, 2006 -- During the first month of the year the resale housing market was ten per cent more active than it was in January 2005, Toronto Real Estate Board President John Meehan announced today.

The 4,587 transactions during the month of January also made it the second-best January ever recorded.

"Overall, this is a very encouraging performance for this time of year. Last year finished as a record, so to be ahead of that pace early on shows that the market has a lot of stability heading into the busier spring months," Mr. Meehan said.

Some specific neighbourhoods that performed strongly in 2005 continued to perform well in January, demonstrating high levels of activity in comparison to January of last year. These included:

In the Junction/High Park area of Toronto, 55 per cent more overall transactions took place during the month than did in January of the year before.

Detached homes were the most popular housing type in Willowdale, as the area showed 68 per cent more overall transactions than in January 2005.

In Markham South, link homes represented half of all transactions as the area showed 32 per cent more overall activity compared to a year ago.

According to Jason Mercer, CMHC's Senior Market Analyst for the Greater Toronto Area, January results were in line with forecasts for 2006.

"Existing home sales will remain near record levels this year. Steady employment growth, in-migration and low borrowing costs will continue to fuel strong ownership demand going forward," Mr. Mercer said.

"Consumers have a lot of reasons to be confident of a healthy market in 2006," Mr. Meehan said. "It's very early yet, but strong figures to start off the year can set the tone for the ensuing months. It's a very good time to be in the market."

 

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* Please note that TREB counts by business or sales days. In a 30 day month, there will usually be about 20 sales days, depending on when the weekends fall, holidays,
and so on.