The number of homes sold in Toronto and the surrounding area fell in 2018, along with the number of new listings hitting the market, as homebuyers and sellers grappled with a new reality of higher interest rates and stricter mortgage rules.

The Toronto Real Estate Board says there were 77,426 residential transactions recorded through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system last year, down 16.1 per cent from 92,263 sales in 2017.

The board says the total number of new listings was also lower, pulling back 12.7 per cent to 155,823 in 2018.

Meanwhile, the average selling price for all property types in the GTA fell by 4.3 per cent to $787,300.

TREB, which represents more than 52,000 real estate agents across the region, says the number of sales in December fell 22.5 per cent to 3,781, down from 4,876 in the same month a year earlier.

The average sale price in December rose slightly by 2.1 per cent to $750,180 from $734,847 when compared to December 2017.

Home sales drop off in Metro Vancouver

The GTA figures come one day after the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver revealed that home sales in metro Vancouver plummeted to their lowest level in nearly two decades last year and the average home price moved lower in the once red-hot real estate market.

The total number of homes sold in Metro Vancouver last year fell to 24,619, marking the lowest total since 2000. hat's down 31.6 per cent from nearly 36,000 in 2017 and 25 per cent below the region's 10-year average.

Further, the composite benchmark price for a home, which includes detached properties, townhomes and condominiums, dropped 2.7 per cent from December 2017 to finish the year at $1,032,400.

REBGV president Phil Moore attributed the declines in B.C. to the same factors impacting home sales in the GTA.

"High home prices, rising interest rates and new mortgage requirements and taxes all contributed to the market conditions we saw in 2018,'' he said.