Toronto single-family prices -19% from peak, back to Oct. 2021. In Montreal, Quebec City, Edmonton, and Winnipeg, prices near all-time highs.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Home sales in Canada jumped by 7.7% in October from September, seasonally adjusted. Compared to the beaten-down levels a year ago, home sales jumped by 30%. New listings declined by 3.5% in October from September, after the 4.8% jump in September from August, “so new supply remains at some of the highest levels since mid-2022,” the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) said today.
Total inventory for sale of 174,458 properties was up by 11.4% from a year ago. Given the surge in sales, supply declined to 3.7 months at the current rate of sales, compared to 4.1 months in September.
Prices of single-family properties in Canada fell 0.9% in October from September and were down 2.1% year-over-year — the sixth year-over-year decline in a row — were down by 17.4% from the peak of the spike in March 2022, and were back where they’d first been in September 2021, according to the Canada MLS Home Price Index for single-family benchmark properties released by CREA today. All prices here are actual, not seasonally adjusted, in Canadian dollars. But as we’ll see in a moment, prices are on very different tracks in different markets.
Prices of condos in Canada fell 0.8% in October from September the lowest level since December 2021. They were down 4.4% year-over-year, the sixth month in a row of year-over-year declines in a row, and were down 12.0% from their peak in April 2022.
Home prices by market in Canada.
Greater Toronto Area, single-family MLS Home Price Benchmark Index:
- Month-to-month: -1.0% to $1,280,000; below October 2021
- From peak in February 2022: -19.2%
- Year-over-year: -2.5%, sixth month of year-over-year declines in a row.
Greater Toronto Area, condo benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -0.7% to $649,900, lowest since October 2021.
- From peak in April 2022: -17.1%
- Year-over-year: -6.1%, with 22 of the past 21 months booking year-over-year declines.
Hamilton-Burlington metro single family benchmark price (part of the “Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area”):
- Month-to-month: -1.5% to $894,600, where it had first been in July 2021
- From peak in February 2022: -22.6%
- Year-over-year: +0.6%.
Greater Vancouver single-family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -0.8%, at $1,999,200.
- From peak in April 2022: -4.6%
- Year-over-year: +0.2%, same as in September, and both were the smallest year-over-year gains since the drop in June 2023.
Greater Vancouver condo benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -0.6%, to $757,200, below March 2022.
- From high in April 2024: -2.7% from high in April 2022: -1.9%
- Year-over-year: -1.6%, fourth year-over-year decline in a row.
Victoria, single-family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: +1.4%, to $1,158,400, back to about December 2021
- From peak in April 2022: -10.4%
- Year-over-year: -0.1%, fifth year-over-year decline in a row.
Victoria condo benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -1.2%, to $549,300, below December 2021.
- From high in May 2022: -10.4%
- Year-over-year: -4.5%, fourth year-over-year decline in a row.
Ottawa, single family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -0.6% to $724,400, back to April 2021
- From peak in March 2022: -11.7%
- Year-over-year: +0.6%.
Calgary, single family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -0.5%, third month of declines from the all-time high, to $680,900.
- Year-over-year: +7.6%, the smallest gain since July 2023.
Calgary, condo benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -1.3%, to $346,500.
- Year-over-year: +10.1%, the smallest gain since June 2023, with gains having ranged from 10.2% to 16.7%.
Montreal, single family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: +0.4%, to $641,600.
- From peak in May 2022: -0.5%
- Year-over-year: +6.9%.
Halifax-Dartmouth, single family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: +0.4% to $548,100
- From peak in April 2022: -5.5%
- Year-over-year: +1.8%.
Edmonton, single-family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -0.6% to $459,800
- Year-over-year: +9.3%
- In the 17 years since the peak of the prior bubble in June 2007, the index is up 16%.
Edmonton, condo benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -1.0% to $196,000, first seen in January 2007.
- From peak in June 2007: -18%
- Year-over-year: +10.5%
Quebec City Area, single-family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: +0.6% to $421,000
- Year-over-year: +6.9%
Winnipeg, single-family benchmark price:
- Month-to-month: -0.3% to $381,000
- From peak in March 2022: -1.8%
- Year-over-year: +6.9%
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Still too expensive.
You people are way too impatient. You’ve been spoiled by cryptos, which collapse overnight, and have done so repeatedly, and when you wake up, they’re at or near zero. Housing doesn’t do that. It takes years. In the US, top to bottom, the housing bust took 5-6 years. In Canada, the housing bust of the 1980s took even longer.
Cdn here. Anecdotally, given the gap between sellers and buyers, I think a lot of connected people are working hard to slow or stop the price-elevator from going down. Maybe buyers need to drop more low offers?
Another floor to pricing is the cost of construction and renovation. Wages in particular are much higher. Some of that is linked to high cost of living; which is linked to inefficient and wasteful government policies and decisions.
Another factor was overly ambitious or desparate government immigration policy. Canada is a small country. Exaggeratedly, it is just 3 to 6 mid size cities. Adding 500k to 1m new people is a big impact on a city’s infrastructure; hence taxes and development charges.
The government is now reversing its “overly ambitious or desperate government immigration policy” in multiple ways.
Too little, too late, but it’s a great start. If they can keep population growth under 0.5% for the next decade, infrastucture and housing might have a chance to catch up…
If you believe some of the noise after the last two weeks, the demand for homes in Canada could be rapidly increasing, which would drive the prices up, but in the U.S., the Los Angeles market could see a lot expensive homes come on the market. 😁
Cdn here. Wolf, appreciate your point, resets take time and best slowly. However we all should be concerned.
My impatience is really more like frustration, and a heart felt more, with the duo monsters, who created this monster bubble in home prices and in public finances: the BOC, (central banks) and the cdn federal government. Both have been reckless.
The pain for Canadian mortgage consumers has been acute. Maybe 30%? renewed last year into high rates, ( 2/3% to 7/8%, and maybe 50% to renew over next two years. Anecdotally, people have been “accommodated by banks” with 80 to 90 year terms.
Many mortgages are underwater; not sure how many, as reporting has been blocked; 2015 was reported as $9B.
The pain for canadian renters has been acute, too. As federal government brought in 6 million people, in 10 years, so Canada went from 35 to 41 million people. Again for sort of 3 to 6 mid-sized cities. Plus 500k+/yr of temporary visas. Property taxes for city infrastructure has sky rocketed. Many are not able to replace boomers, so there are sugnifucant skill shortages in construction, health care, etc, etc. Happily, no shortage of real estate agents. And rent costs have escalated significantly.
Added insult came ecently from our Deputy Governor of BOC, who recently lectured us that it is best to not “tinker” with housing/mortgage incentives, as that leads to longer term higher costs. No sh’t Einstein!. Of course DP of BOC is but one person. Where were the rest of the leadership vanguard, for the last 30 years?
Huge fuducuary failure.
Thanks.
Realtors have been screaming that come what may, Condo price may fall but not SFR.
I guess this move comes to So Cal as well.