Home sales hit record high.

Zach Neal photo. Norman Street, Sarnia.

OTTAWA - Home sales across the country hit a record high last month, propped up by transactions in the fiercely hot market of Toronto, further fuelling concerns about the city’s real estate sector.

The Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday home sales over its Multiple Listings Service system increased by 1.1 per cent in March to top the previous monthly record set in April 2016. On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales totalled 46,353, up from 45,856 in February.

Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter said where you stand on the issue of Canada’s housing market depends on where you live.

“Almost the entire province of Ontario’s housing market is now on fire, while most of the rest of the country wonders what all the fuss is about,” Porter wrote in a research note.

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Reflected Heat Warms Smaller Centres.

From Dave Dentinger, Blackburn News.

Smaller markets like Sarnia-Lambton are reaping some benefit from Toronto’s red hot housing market.

The president of the local real estate board, Steve Park, made the comment on CHOK’s The Talk Show with Sue Storr Tuesday morning.

“For 25 years, as long as I’ve been in real estate, every time someone listed their house they said ‘Well, we just want that Toronto buyer to come,’ and they never did because it was like there was a wall in London,” says Park. “That has changed in the last five to seven years and yes, they are retiring in Sarnia. They’re not doing that in droves, but they are doing that a lot more than they were, five to seven years ago.”

Park says the local market is doing very well but the average sale price has increased by only about five percent. He thinks, in part, expensive pricing in Toronto is driving people to smaller population centres.

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Thank you for reading.