The average house price across Hamilton soared to $434,957 last month, up more than 20 per cent from the previous December.

The Realtors Association of Hamilton and Burlington also said sales across the Hamilton area and Burlington (up 13.1 per cent) hit a record high - the sixth month last year to do so.

There were 480 residential property sales in December in Hamilton, including condo units as well as fully detached homes.

The numbers were even more staggering in Toronto, where its real estate board said the GTA's average home price hit $730,472 last month, up 20 per cent from December 2015.

Strong December sales volumes helped make 2016 a record year for realtors in the Greater Toronto Area, the Toronto Real Estate Board said. There were 5,338 sales transactions for all types of residential property - including condo units and fully detached houses. That was up 8.6 per cent compared with December 2015 - despite a tight supply of properties for sale.

The Toronto board's MLS house price index - which adjusts for the different types of properties - was up 21 per cent in December. For the full year, its members had 113,133 sales through the MLS system - up 11.8 per cent compared with 2015, which had the previous record high.

"A relatively strong regional economy, low unemployment and very low borrowing costs kept the demand for ownership housing strong in the GTA, as the region's population continued to grow in 2016," TREB president Larry Cerqua said in a statement Thursday.

The Toronto board says upward momentum on pricing accelerated as the year progressed and the overall average selling price for the calendar year was $729,922 - up 17.3 per cent compared with 2015.

Another factor affecting prices was a constrained supply of active listings, which hit a 15-year low in December. "Total new listings for 2016 were down by almost four per cent," said TREB's director of market analysis, Jason Mercer.

In October, the federal government made a number of changes aimed at stabilizing the country's real estate markets, including requiring stress tests for all insured mortgages. The stress test change was intended to ensure that Canadians don't take on larger mortgages than they can handle.

On Wednesday, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver reported that home sales in Metro Vancouver fell 5.6 per cent last year.

Meanwhile, the composite benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver tumbled to $897,600 last month. That's up 17.8 per cent compared to December 2015.