Uneven correction put brokers on notice as the market split deepened
Canada’s housing market has entered prime spring selling season with a whimper, not a bang, as RBC Economics reported a fourth straight year of national home price declines and the weakest March resale tally since 2009.
The analysis by Robert Hogue, assistant chief economist at RBC, pointed to a growing divide between oversupplied Ontario and British Columbia and tighter markets across much of the rest of the country.
Hogue wrote that March resales came in at 38,700 units on an unadjusted basis, the lowest for that month in 17 years. He added that the national MLS Home Price Index is sitting about 20% below its peak in early 2022.
In a market still digesting rapid rate hikes and softer economic conditions, he said “buyers feel little urgency to make decisions amid heightened economic uncertainty, falling prices and abundant inventory in parts of the country.”
Royal LePage’s 2026 Market Survey Forecast pointed to a fragile national recovery, with most big-city markets edging higher while Toronto and Vancouver stayed in reverse.https://t.co/gQJbE8GcJ1
— Canadian Mortgage Professional Magazine (@CMPmagazine) April 17, 2026
On the supply side, Hogue said a “tougher selling environment” has kept some owners from listing, even as active inventory hovered near decade‑long highs in Ontario and B.C.
He noted that sellers there increasingly need to make “larger price concessions to get deals done with buyers lacking confidence, and still significantly strained by high ownership costs.”
That dynamic helped push the MLS HPI down 7.4% year over year in the Greater Toronto Area and 6.8% in Vancouver, with mid‑sized Ontario markets such as Kitchener‑Waterloo, Barrie and London also posting mid‑single‑digit to high‑single‑digit declines.
Elsewhere, price trajectories remained very different. Hogue pointed out that Regina, Saskatoon, Montreal, Quebec City, Moncton and Newfoundland and Labrador all still recorded annual price gains, supported by tighter inventory conditions.
Earlier RBC affordability work already warned that “gains became weaker and sparser in Canada” even as ownership costs eased from their 2023 peak.
Hogue also cautioned that “persistent gloom arising from geopolitical events, spiking energy prices, and fragile job markets” risk prolonging the slump, with immigration cuts cooling demand and interest rates “unlikely to fall further” in the near term.
At the same time, he allowed that lower prices and “improving affordability could motivate more buyers to enter the market” as spring progresses, potentially absorbing inventory and laying groundwork for a patchy recovery.
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