Jen­nifer MacMil­lan – Globe and Mail

Real estate sales in the Greater Toronto Area have rebounded in a big way after a bru­tal slump, increas­ing nearly 30% since last June and herald­ing the return of a seller’s market.

The Toronto Real Estate Board reports that this was the best June on record, with 10,955 single-family homes sold last month, and the aver­age price hit­ting $403,972 – up 2% from the same month last year.

“A lot of places are get­ting mul­ti­ple offers,” said a Toronto real estate bro­ker. “It def­i­nitely is a heated mar­ket right now.”

Uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sor Sharon Sli­win­ski has been house-hunting since mid-June and is already frus­trated with the crowded market.

“There was a place in Leslieville I was speech­less about, it was really great,” Ms. Sli­win­ski said. “I was at the house and it wasn’t even an open house, but there was a con­stant rota­tion of peo­ple com­ing through to see it.”

When Ms. Sli­win­ski learned there were already six bids on the home, she didn’t bother to put in her own offer. She also lost out on a house just north of High Park.

“I even made a healthy offer of $25,000 over the ask­ing price,” Ms. Sli­win­ski said.

“Any­thing that shows well is gone right away.”

Last fall’s eco­nomic tail­spin spooked many would-be home buy­ers, dri­ving down December’s home sales to just 2,577. But now, buy­ers are com­ing back to the mar­ket in droves, encour­aged by low inter­est rates. Most peo­ple did not really expect the real estate mar­ket in Toronto to turn around so quickly.

There are fewer deals to be had in the stronger mar­ket, but more buy­ers are look­ing to less-expensive areas like the Junc­tion near Dun­das and Keele.

There have been fewer homes for sale as own­ers waited for prices to bounce back, but many real­tors are pre­dict­ing more home­own­ers will opt to sell over the next few months.

Jason Mer­cer, a real estate board mar­ket ana­lyst, says he expects the 416 and 905 areas to have com­pa­ra­ble growth rates through the sec­ond half of the year, with Bramp­ton and Toronto’s condo–rich water­front boast­ing the biggest sales num­bers in June.

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