A new Royal LePage survey predicts Canada's residential real estate market will remain "unusually strong" through the first half of 2010.

A new Royal LePage survey predicts Canada's residential real estate market will remain "unusually strong" through the first half of 2010. (CBC)

As confidence in the economic recovery grows, average prices are likely to increase, the real estate agency says.

Royal LePage executive Phil Soper says the real estate market enters 2010 with "considerable momentum from an unusually strong finish to the previous year."

The stimulus effect of low borrowing costs has contributed to a sharp rise in demand that has driven activity to new highs, he says.

The data backs that up. New data released Thursday from Canada's largest real estate market, Toronto, showed existing home sales were up a massive 115 per cent, year over year, in December.

Those gains came against a particularly poor showing in December 2008, but the 5,541 sales reported by the Toronto Real Estate Board are the strongest December on record back to 1980, BMO economist Robert Kavcic said in a note to clients on Thursday.

Listings in the city were down 47 per cent, year on year, causing average prices to be pushed up 14 per cent. "Too much (cheap) money chasing too few goods," Kavcic said.

The average home price in 2009 climbed four per cent to $395,460, the TREB said.

That follows the national trend, according to Royal LePage. House prices appreciated in late 2009, with fourth quarter price averages higher than fourth quarter 2008

Nationally, the average price of detached bungalows rose to $315,055 (up six per cent), the price of standard two-storey homes rose to $353,026 (up 5.2 per cent), and the price of a standard condominium rose to $205,756 (up 6.4 per cent), Royal LePage said.