Orchidpoet via Getty Images In this stock photo, an aerial view of condo and apartment towers in Toronto's Midtown neighbourhood is seen on an autumn day.

Fears of the coronavirus didn’t stop the greater Toronto real estate market in February as homebuyers bid up prices, data from the regional real estate board shows. And falling interest rates mean homebuyers will likely have more firepower to drive up house prices this spring, observers say. Home sales in greater Toronto were up 45.6 per cent compared to the same month a year earlier, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board said Wednesday ― though that compares to a particularly weak month last year, when sales hit a 10-year low. Watch: Celebrities who’ve snapped up Canadian real estate. Story continues below.

All the same, Toronto’s market is turning more difficult for buyers as the number of home sales is growing faster than the supply of homes coming on the market, TRREB said. The average selling price for all housing types was up nearly 17 per cent from a year earlier, to $910,290. That’s an increase of more than $130,000. Condo prices saw an 18.6-per-cent spike, to $666,358. “This is because the temporary effects of the 2017 Ontario Fair Housing Plan and the OSFI mortgage stress test have largely worn off,” TRREB CEO John DiMichele said in a statement. “However, while these policies were running their course, the well-publicized housing supply problem in the GTA continued unabated. ... [W]e need to very quickly move from policy briefs to shovels in the ground.”