National home sales throughout Canada set a new record in December and for all of 2020, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).
Home sales in Canada were up 47.2% in December 2020 compared to a year earlier, the largest annual increase in monthly sales in 11 years. The spike in sales from November to December was 7.2% and driven by gains of more than 20% in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Greater Vancouver.
It was a new record for the month of December by a margin of more than 12,000 transactions, CREA said. For the sixth straight month, sales activity was up in almost all Canadian housing markets compared to the same month in 2019.
Canada also set a new record for home sales in an entire year during 2020.
Almost 552,000 homes were sold in Canada in 2020, a new annual record. It was an increase of 12.6% from 2019 and 2.3% more than the previous annual record set in 2016.
The national average home price in Canada in 2020 was a record $607,280, up 17.1% from 2019. CREA said that, excluding Greater Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area, would lower the national average home price by almost $130,000.
