Average price of detached home in Toronto tops $1.5M

TORONTO — The average price of a detached home in Toronto shattered the $1.5-million mark for the first time last month, the city’s real estate board said Friday, adding fuel to worries about a housing bubble.

The average price of homes sold in the Greater Toronto Area in February soared 27.7 per cent compared with a year ago, while the number of properties sold rose 5.7 per cent, the Toronto Real Estate Board said.

The increase in sales came in spite of the fact that last year was a leap year and benefited from an extra day of activity.

“I think the best thing that we can do is to keep a very careful eye on this,” Mayor John Tory said.

“It’s been crazy out there,” said Shawn Zigelstein, a sales representative with Royal LePage Your Community Realty. “There doesn’t seem to be a slowdown.”

The average selling price in the GTA hit $875,983 in February, while in the City of Toronto it was $859,186, an increase of 19.2 per cent. The average price of a detached home in the City of Toronto hit $1,573,622 — 29.8 per cent higher than a year ago.

The MLS home price composite benchmark price for all communities measured by TREB was $727,300, up 23.8 per cent.

On Thursday, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver released figures showing a 41.9 per cent plunge in homes sold last month year-over-year.

The MLS home price composite benchmark price for Metro Vancouver was $906,700, 14 per cent higher than what it was a year ago, but down 2.8 per cent from six months ago.