The average price of a Canadian home that sold in December was $626,318, a decline of more than 12 per cent from where it was the same month a year ago.
The Canadian Real Estate Association, which represents more than 150,000 realtors across the country, released new numbers about the country’s housing market on Monday, showing that the number of homes sold and the prices they fetched were both sharply lower in December than they were the same month a year earlier.
Sales fell by more than 39 per cent from December 2021’s level. And prices were also well down from an average of $713,500 at the end of 2021, and a peak of $816,720 reached in February 2022, before the Bank of Canada started aggressively raising lending rates.
The realtor group says the average selling price can be misleading since it is easily skewed by sales of expensive homes in places like Toronto and Vancouver. So it tabulates a different number — known as the House Price Index — that adjusts for the volume and type of housing sold.
The HPI was down by 13 per cent from its peak last year, with Ontario and British Columbia seeing the biggest declines, while just about everywhere else saw either small declines or even slight increases in some cases.
On an annual basis, the HPI went up by 2.4 per cent in Victoria, 8.6 per cent in Calgary, 6.4 per cent in Quebec City and 6.3 per cent in Halifax, CREA says.
In Saskatoon, where Guylaine Patenaude lives, the market is essentially flat, but that suits her just fine. She recently sold the condo she has owned in the city for 15 years, and is now on the hunt for something larger.
Guylaine Patenaude recently sold her condo in Saskatoon, and is looking to move into something bigger. (CBC)
She’s relieved to have sold, and says it’s nice to be able to be a little choosy on what she hopes will be her forever home. And even after the uptick in lending costs, mortgage rates right now are about the same as what they were the first time she bought, in 2008.
“That’s encouraging in the sense that I can still afford what I hope to afford,” she told CBC News in an interview.
Rishi Sondhi, an economist with TD Bank, says that while it’s clear that Canada’s housing market has cooled significantly from its red-hot status earlier in the pandemic, the numbers for December “signal that a bottom in the housing market may be forming.”
Prices fell by 0.3 per cent on a monthly basis, the smallest decline since the market began correcting in March.
“With new listings dropping significantly last month and the level remaining low, there are no real signs so far that forced selling is dominating the supply picture.”
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
