Residential Mortgage Commentary - Realtors hopeful about spring market

  • First National Financial LP

Canada’s realtors are hinting that home prices may have found their bottom. 

The February numbers from the Canadian Real Estate Association show price, as measured by the Aggregate Composite MLS Home Price Index (seasonally adjusted), was flat compared to January.  That ends a five month slide in prices, which dropped 1.3% between December and January.

The national average price of a home in February came in at a little less than $686,000, up 3.5% year-over-year.

Sales were up almost 20% from last February, but it has to be remembered that February 2023 was an unusually slow month.  Compared to January sales dipped 3.1% in February.  

CREA is hopeful the stabilization of prices signals an impending reversal in demand.

“The fact that prices were unchanged from January to February was noteworthy given the … drop from December to January.  [S]hifts this abrupt are exceedingly rare.  There have only been three other times in the last 20 years that have shared a sudden improvement or increase in the month-over-month percentage change … of this size; all at various points in the last four years when demand was coming off the sidelines,” CREA said in its release.

New listings rose 1.6% in February compared to January, bringing the sales-to-new listings ratio to 55.6%. The long-term average is 55%.

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