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Heating Up: Canada's Housing Market Skips the Chill
December 17, 2024 | Posted by: Simon Lyn
Heating Up: Canada's Housing Market Skips the Chill
Just when you think it’s time to settle in for a quiet winter, the Canadian housing market decides it’s not done heating things up! In November, home sales weren’t just up—they were practically doing a victory lap, jumping 2.8% from October and reaching an impressive 18.4% rise since May.
The Big Players and Newcomers
The usual suspects—Greater Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal—were the stars of the show, but let’s not overlook the double-digit sales leaps in Alberta and Ontario's smaller cities. This party wasn’t just for the big city folks!
Shaun Cathcart from CREA points out that tighter market conditions and the recent price bumps at the national level—the first significant increase in almost a year and a half—could hint at an unusually active winter. Thanks to the Bank of Canada’s latest rate cuts and more lenient mortgage rules, it seems buyers are ready to trade their snow shovels for house keys.
New Listings: Now You See Them, Now You Don't
While buyers are out in full force, new listings decided to play hard to get, ticking down another 0.5% following a 3% decrease in October. The sales-to-new listings ratio tightened up to 59.2%—nudging closer to a seller's market, especially when you consider there were just 3.7 months of inventory at the end of November, the lowest in over a year.
Prices on the Rise
Meanwhile, home prices aren’t just stabilizing; they’re climbing. The average national home price reached $694,411 in November 2024, marking a 7.4% increase from last year. The smallest price decline since last April suggests things might be looking up for those eyeing the market.
What’s Next?
The Bank of Canada's aggressive rate-cutting and tweaks to housing policies are like kindling to the market’s fire. With household debt-to-income ratios improving and disposable income growth outpacing borrowing, the housing market's pulse is strong—and expected to only get stronger.
This winter, the Canadian housing market is proving to be anything but typical. If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to jump in, it seems the market’s motto this season is “now or never.” So bundle up, because the action isn’t waiting for the snow to melt!
