Home sales flat as buyer caution continues
Canadian home sales were largely unchanged month over month in November as homebuyers showed no signs of stepping off the sidelines towards the end of the year.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) said on Monday that national home sales ticked 0.6% lower last month, with the MLS Home Price Index (HPI) slipping by 0.4% compared with October. Meanwhile, non-seasonally adjusted national average home prices fell by 2%, to $682,219.
That reflects a Canada-wide housing market still struggling to find momentum amid economic uncertainty and continuing affordability challenges. Monthly activity was 10.7% lower than the same time last year on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, CREA said.
The number of properties for sale across the country jumped by 8.5% compared with the same time last year, to 173,000. Still, that remains below the long-term average for November – and new supply was 1.6% lower compared with October.
While there have been few tariff escalations by US president Donald Trump in recent weeks, the trade war he launched soon after taking office has weighed heavily on Canada’s housing market this year.
CREA chair Valérie Paquin said those trade measures had been the main impediment to market growth over the past 12 months.
“2025 was initially expected to be the year that housing markets came out of their interest rate-induced hibernation, but as we all know, the rug was pulled out from under that recovery by the economic shock of US tariffs,” she said.
“With interest rates now even lower as a result of a softer economy, the focus shifts to the spring of 2026 and whether we’ll finally see the return of more normal levels of housing activity.”
The national sales picture may be bleak – but economists have highlighted how data is skewed slightly by the highly regional nature of Canada’s housing market.
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) assistant chief economist Robert Hogue recently pointed to the solid performance of housing markets in Vancouver, Calgary, Fraser Valley, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg and Montreal, contrasting sharply with the continuing struggles of the Toronto and Hamilton markets.
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