Detached home prices in Toronto rose 18.9 per cent in April, as a lack of supply in the single-family home market pushed prices higher.

The Toronto Real Estate Board said there was a four per cent drop in listings as fewer properties hit the market. Central Toronto remained the most expensive, with the average price rising to $1.98-million.

Many would-be home buyers were unable to find a home that met their needs due to the lower volume of detached listings, Toronto Real Estate Board president Mark McLean noted in a release.

“In the City of Toronto in particular, some households have chosen not to list their home for sale because of the second substantial Land Transfer Tax and associated administration fee,” McLean said in the release. “The lack of available inventory, coupled with record sales, continued to translate into robust annual rates of price growth.”

TREB director of market analysis Jason Mercer noted the organization expects home prices to continue to accelerate, as conditions remain far from balanced.

“As we move into the busiest time of the year, in terms of sales volume, strong competition between buyers will continue to push home prices higher,” Mercer said in the release. “A greater supply of listings would certainly be welcome, but we would need to see a number of consecutive months in which listings growth outpaced sales growth before market conditions become more balanced.”

It’s another sign the nation’s two hottest housing markets are showing no sign of cooling down. On Tuesday, data from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver showed that benchmark prices for Vancouver's detached homes rose more than 28 per cent.