The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) reported reported 4,986 transactions last month, and this was only slightly higher over previous January’s, so 2009 was an unusually slow month.

The average house selling price in the GTA also increased in January 2010 19% from $343,632 to $409,058 over last year.

TREB also believes that annual growth rates for existing home sales and average prices will continue to be strong through Q1 2010 as the comparisons are being made to a weak market in 2009. Things will slow down in the later half of 2010 as a lot of housing demand is being brought forward as Canadians look to take advantage of incredibly low mortgage rates, although some members of our Mortgage Rate Outlook Panel believe that we could see rates go even lower this month.