It’s crystal ball season, and the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has updated its forecasts for 2026 – and it’s feeling bullish!
National home sales are forecast to rebound by 7.7% to 509,479. If correct, that prediction would deliver the highest level for activity since 2021.
“Historically, national home sales have only ever cracked the half-million mark seven times, with the first instance back in 2007,” CREA said in a statement.
Prices would also improve. The national average home price would increase 3.2% on 2025 figures to $698,622.
CREA said this would “mark the sixth straight year where the national average home price has hovered around the $700,000 range”.
One in 10 Canadians planned to buy a home in the next 12 months, half of them for the first time, according to new industry data.
However, personal finance site WOWA said it didn’t expect lower interest rates to “unleash” demand in 2026 even though a “large portion” of five-year fixed rate deals would renew next year.
Regaining economic confidence would be difficult if US tariffs remained. On the plus side, WOWA said, there would be more “credit-ready” immigrants seeking to enter the property market in 2026.
Meanwhile, the CREA confessed that making predictions was more precarious than ever given the unusual economic situation.
The market would have a challenging end to 2025, it said. Some 473,093 residential properties would “trade hands via Canadian MLS Systems by the end of 2025”.
This represented a 1.1% fall from the 2024 result.
Disappointing sales volumes in British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta would offset gains elsewhere.
The average home price in 2025 would finish at $676,705, a 1.4% decline on the 2024 result.
Prices drops in British Columbia and Ontario had pulled the national picture into a decline situation. CREA said other provinces had seen price growth of between 4%-8%.
“In early 2025,” said the CREA, “tariff chaos and economic uncertainty returned many homebuyers back to the sidelines, taking particularly large bites out of activity in British Columbia and Ontario.”