Toronto-area home sales set record in 2016

• Home sales here hit a record high last year, according to the latest data from the Toronto Real Estate Board, as activity in the closely watched Vancouver market began to slow.

TREB said Thursday i ts members had 113,133 residential property sales through the MLS system in 2016, an increase of 11.8 per cent compared to the previous year.

That includes 5,338 sales in December — an increase of 8.6 per cent from December 2015, despite a tight supply of properties f or sale.

For the first time, the real estate board commissioned research firm Ipsos to conduct a survey on the activity by foreign buyers in the Toronto market.

The results of the online survey of 3,518 realtors, conducted between Oct. 6 and 21, suggested that 4.9 per cent of transactions in the Greater Toronto Area were with a foreign buyer.

TREB reported the average price of a home sold in the Greater Toronto Area soared to $ 730,472 l ast month, up 20 per cent from December 2015.

The board’s MLS house price index — which adjusts for the different types of properties — was up 21 per cent in December from a year earlier.

Toronto’s strong sales figures came a day after the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver reported that sales last year in the closely watched real estate market fell 5.6 per cent compared with 2015.