I headed off to Northern Michigan last week for my annual golf junket with a great bunch of guys from the Southern U.S. (Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi) that I got hooked up with about 10 years ago.

The boys are well aware of what I do for a living and so, of course, they would ask “How’s the housing market up there?” With the most recent RealNet statistics hot off the press, I could not help but brag – believe me, on a golf junket, bragging rights are everything.

I always laugh when the boys refer to anywhere in Canada as “up there” but this time, while they were thinking geography, I was thinking height, as in high-rise, as in condo.

The RealNet numbers reveal a 53 per cent surge in new home sales in June. Bucking recent performance trends, sales of low-rise homes in the 905 areas were up 40 per cent. Consistent with recent trends, high-rise sales were up a whopping 62 per cent. On a year-to-date basis, the low-rise market is flat-line with 2010 while high-rise is running 39 per cent ahead.

RealNet points out a number of interesting aspects to the numbers such as the fact that it was the second best June ever and the fourth best month of all for high-rise sales. The past three months amounted to the second best second quarter (April-June) and the best ever first half for high-rise sales. As a matter of fact, with nearly 24,000 new homes and condos sold so far this year, the first half of 2011 is the second best since 2000 for total new home sales

How’s the market up there? High is the answer.

Stephen Dupuis is President and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and can be found on Twitter (twitter.com/bildgta), Facebook (facebook.com/bildgta), YouTube (youtube.com/bildgta) and BILD’s official online blog (bildblogs.ca).