Key takeaways:
- Ontario is leading the deceleration, according to CREA data.
- Average house costs have fallen in Canada by nearly 18 percent since February, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.
Canada’s housing market continued its deceleration last month, with the average selling cost of a house touching $665,850 — a drop of nearly 20 percent since February.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), representing almost 100,000 brokers, agents, and salespeople across the nation, said Friday that the house sales volume decreased by 5.6 percent during the month and is down by nearly one-quarter compared to last year.
“Activity continues to delay in the face of increasing interest rates and uncertainty,” CREA chair Jill Oudil said in a report.
After proliferating for much of the pandemic, higher interest rates hit the brakes on Canada’s housing market this spring. Average selling costs have fallen each month since February 2022 and are down by 1.8 percent compared to what they were a year back.
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“What goes up must come down, and the Canadian housing market resumed to chill in June under the weight of higher interest rates,” T.D. Bank economist Ksenia Bushmeneva stated.
Ontario showed the way down, as selling costs in the region’s suburban markets that grew the most during the pandemic are now returning to earth.
“Sales and costs are down disproportionately more in Ontario and B.C., which suffered extreme affordability declines during the pandemic,” Bushmeneva displayed. “We hope home prices and sales will move even lower amid further stress from borrowing prices.”
She isn’t the best one thinking the market still has a way to go before bottoming. Waleed Hamed has been on the sidelines of Canada’s housing demand for years, waiting for a possibility to purchase, but he said he could never justify leaping.
Source – CBC News
