Toronto “is starting to stand out as the hottest real estate market right now,” following the release of December sales figures, BMO Nesbitt Burns economist Robert Kavcic says.

The Toronto Real Estate Board said Thursday that Greater Toronto real estate agents reported 4,718 sales in December, up 10.1 per cent from the same period in 2010. The average selling price was $451,436, up 4 per cent year over year.

Over the course of three days last October, Marc Girouard and Kelty Druet corresponded by email about the sale of Druet’s condo in downtown Moncton, N.B.

After a series of emails and an offer and counter offer, Druet agreed to sell unit 203 at 850 Main St. for $155,000, or so Girouard thought. But Druet changed her mind and the case landed up in court.

Toronto is rapidly transforming into a “vertical world” because of an unprecedented condo boom and greenbelt policies that are making single-family homes “precious commodities,” a new report says.

Provincial efforts to limit sprawl have helped drive up house — and land — prices across the GTA to the point where the dream of raising children in a house with a yard may be dying, warns the annual survey by PricewaterhouseCooper released Tuesday.

When Realtor Desmond Brown walks into a house that’s just too stunning to be someone’s home, he heads to the fridge.
 
An empty fridge is his second clue that the home has been super staged to appeal to a new generation of buyers who are looking for more of a showcase than a sound house to call their home.
 
“Gone are the days that you walk into a house and think, ‘Wow, they really lived in this place,” says Brown.