The monthly volume of home sales has now risen 11.2% since March and there are predictions across the real estate sector that the Canadian market is beginning its long-awaited bounce back.
After the threat of significant US tariffs put a brake on transactions earlier this year, Canadians have started to regain confidence in the economy, their job security and the housing market.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has just reported home sales climbed 3.8% in July compared with June.
Its economist, Shaun Cathcart, has gone so far as to claim there’s now a “trend” of transaction volume growth that will bolster prices.
The average home price across Canada has held steady at $672,784.
However, with an increasing number of buyers coming into the market – upsizers, downsizers and first homebuyers – price pressure may soon return to many urban centres.
So, are we moving from a buyer’s market to one favouring sellers?
It’s entirely possible. CREA’s sales-to-new listings ratio is 52%, which represents a balanced market. If the index moves beyond 65% – and that could happen given the pent-up demand in the market since last March – sellers will have the upper hand in negotiations.
In this month’s CREA Housing Market Report, Cathcart declares: “With every month that goes by here, we can say more and more that the rebound we’ve been forecasting for the last year was just delayed by a few months and now we’re sort of in it.”
National home sales are 6.6% higher when compared to those in July of last year while the number of properties for sale has remained stable.
This suggests many properties that have been sitting on the market for more than 30 days are beginning to attract buyer interest.
Values continue to edge up nationally, recording a 0.6% rise compared with 12 months ago.
As an experienced agency, we believe this is a great sign for the coming months, which are a busy time for real estate traditionally.
Folks return from their summer holidays and either start or resume their search for a new property in the hope of finalising a transaction and move before Christmas and New Year.
Our autumn market often sees a spike in home listings, and anecdotal evidence suggests that with the tariff cloud removed – at least for the moment – we’re going to see increased activities from first-time buyers and owners seeking to upsize their properties.
CREA’s Cathcart agrees with this perspective, saying: “If the buyers are waiting, that’s where we’re going to see things sell in even bigger numbers in October and November. That’s what happened last year.”