Canada’s population is growing at the slowest pace in years, but buyers are facing a busy market. Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) data shows record home sales for September. The increase in home sales is largely due to a seasonal shift, after the lockdown.
Canadian Real Estate Sales Are Up 46%
Canadian real estate sales set a new record for the month. On a seasonally adjusted basis, there were 56,422 homes sold in September, up 0.9% from the month before. Unadjusted the number comes in at 61,308 sales, up 46.6% from the same month last year. This is the most sales for any September on record, according to CREA. The seasonal shift that was expected, is a little more obvious after viewing an overlay of years.
Canadian Real Estate Sales
The unadjusted sales for all home types, as reported through the Canadian MLS.Source: CREA, Better Dwelling.
This Is The Fastest Rate of Growth Since 2010
Growth accelerated to the highest level in over a decade. The rate of growth showed a fifth consecutive month of acceleration. At 46.6%, the 12-month increase is now at the highest level since 2010. There’s a common theme amongst the two periods – both followed negative growth. This once again confirms the pent-up demand agents are talking about. Buyers that could not buy during the pandemic, were delayed in their purchase. The vast majority were not eliminated.
Canadian Real Estate Sales Change
The annual percent chage of unadjusted sales for all home types, as reported through the Canadian MLS.Source: CREA, Better Dwelling.
Canadian Real Estate Sales Are Still Playing Catch Up
Looking at the rolling average, it’s a little more clear that a lot of this growth is just catching up. The 12-month rolling reached 42,371 in September, up 7.4% from the same month last year. While there’s record sales over the past few months, it’s still nothing like it was from 2015 to 2018. Even if it really doesn’t feel that way.
Canadian Real Estate Sales: Rolling Average
The 12-month rolling average of Canadian real estate sales.Source: CREA, Better Dwelling.
Canadian real estate sales reached record levels, expected due to the seasonal shift. Spring buyers that faced a lock down, were mostly pushed to Summer. Those Summer buyers are still catching up in the Fall. This is likely to persist for at least the rest of the year, as pent-up demand catches up. The same trend is likely to make sales volumes look weak next year, if normal seasons play out.
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TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
