New figures showed a sales drop in December, while the market’s full-year performance lagged 2024
Canada’s housing market ended a forgettable year with another homebuying decline in December as sales dipped by 2.7% from the previous month.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) said on Thursday that the market was also cooler for the full year compared with 2024, with transactions slipping by 1.9% to 470,314 units as US tariffs and economic uncertainty weighed against homebuyer confidence.
The MLS Home Price Index (HPI), a gauge of prices across the country, also ticked lower on a yearly basis, falling by 4%, and dropped by 0.3% between November and December amid the market’s continuing deep freeze.
The non-seasonally adjusted national average home price was $673,335 for the month, CREA said, while 4.5 months of inventory were available nationally by year-end.
By the end of the year, 133,495 properties were listed for sale in Canada, CREA said, higher than 12 months prior but still well below the long-term December average.
And new supply was also down for the fourth month in a row, dropping by 2% last month as the sales-to-new listings ratio posted a mild improvement.
CREA senior Shaun Cathcart said the monthly drop in sales appeared to be driven mainly by slowdowns in Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary.
“For that reason, it would be prudent for market observers to resist the temptation to trace a line from the end of 2025 into 2026,” he said. “Rather we continue to expect sales to move higher again as we get closer to the spring, rejoining the upward trend that was observed throughout the spring, summer, and early fall of last year.”
While the Bank of Canada introduced a series of rate cuts in 2024 and 2025, the central bank appears to be done for now – and CREA’s chair Valérie Paquin cited that as a reason for a potential spring uptick in purchase activity.
“While we remain in the quiet time of year for a little while longer, the spring market is now just around the corner, and it is expected to benefit from four years of pent-up demand and interest rates that at this point are about as good as they are going to get,” she said.
“Barring any further major uncertainty-causing events, that means we should see a more active market this year.”
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