These are stories Report on Business is following Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015.

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Home prices surge

Toronto realtors look at it this way: Home prices may be considerably higher, but borrowing costs are lower.

In a mid-month report released today, the Toronto Real Estate Board said sales in the region surged almost 15 per cent in the first two weeks of February from the same period last year.

The average price, meanwhile, jumped 10.3 per cent to $602,110, while new listings rose at a slower pace of 3.5 per cent.

“While home prices are higher compared to this time last year, borrowing costs are lower,” the group’s president, Paul Etherington, said in releasing the report.

Behind the price surge are developments such as bidding wars.

“With tight market conditions continuing to prevail in most parts of the Greater Toronto Area, especially where low-rise home types are concerned, it is no surprise that we continue to see strong competition between buyers leading to robust annual rates of price growth,” said Jason Mercer, the group’s director of market analysis.

In the full month of January, Toronto sales rose 6.1 per cent, and the average price 4.9 per cent.

Canada’s housing market isn’t so much a national market, but rather a string of regions.

And, as The Globe and Mail’s Tamsin McMahon reports, the nature of those regions is changing markedly amid the oil slump.

Calgary, for example, which sits in the heart of Canada’s oil patch, was not that long ago the hottest market in the country.

But sales there are plunging now – down 35 per cent in January – along with the price of oil.

National sales fell 3.1 per cent last month from December. But if you strip out Calgary and Alberta, sales rose by 1.9 per cent.

Having said that, sales in certain other parts of Canada weren’t “especially hot either,” as 15 of the 26 markets measured saw no increase or an outright drop in January from a year earlier, noted chief economist Douglas Porter of BMO Nesbitt Burns.

“Canada’s housing market is cooling notably, largely because of the sudden deep chill in the previously hottest cities,” Mr. Porter said.

“However, there is still plenty of regional variation churning below the surface. We suspect that with borrowing costs still plumbing the depths and many provincial economies holding up, any housing correction will be a specific regional affair.”

In a new report released today, Mr. Porter's colleague at BMO, senior economist Sal Guatieri, said he expects house prices across Canada to rise 2 per cent this year, as the increases in Toronto and Vancouver overshadow the troubles of Calgary.

“However, rising interest rates in 2016 will restrain prices in these two cities,” he added.

When you strip out Vancouver and Toronto, Mr. Guatieri said, home prices “appear reasonable,” meaning less chance of a “severe” national correction.

But the fast pace of gains in Vancouver and Toronto, he warned, “raise the odds of a correction if economic conditions turn for the worse.”

Tamsin McMahon: Home sales in Prairies derailed by crude’s collapse

Ad slogans I'd love to see

'Just do it' is the Nike slogan

'This Bud's for you' is the famous Budweiser slogan

'The best to you each morning' is a Kellogg's slogan

'Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't' was a jingle for Mounds and Almond Joy bars

'Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!' was a popular ad slogan of years past

'You're richer than you think' is a Bank of Nova Scotia slogan

'Good to the last drop' is a Maxwell House slogan

'I'm lovin' it' is a McDonald's slogan

'The happiest place on Earth' is the Disneyland slogan

'Melts in your mouth, not in your hand' was a famous M&M's slogan

'It takes a licking and keeps on ticking' is a classic Timex slogan

'Snap, crackle and pop' is the line from Rice Krispies

'It keeps going, and going, and going'originates with an Energizer campaign