There were more than 40,700 home sales nationally in August, the highest number since August, 2021.COLE BURSTON/The Canadian Press
Canada’s housing market is showing increasing signs of a turnaround with sales rising for the fifth straight month in August.
There were 40,714 home purchases nationally last month, a 1.1-per-cent increase from July, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association, or CREA. That was the highest level for August since 2021 when there were 51,145 sales and the country’s real estate market was booming.
Activity climbed in Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa, offsetting a dip in the Toronto region. At the same time, more homeowners put their properties up for sale across the country, with new listings rising 2.6 per cent to 79,527 units from July to August.
Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s senior economist, said the real estate market is poised for more activity this fall, especially as sales have been sluggish for more than two years.
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The industry had been expecting buyers to come back into the market last year after the Bank of Canada started cutting interest rates, but that did not occur as borrowing costs were still relatively high.
Then the industry anticipated buyers to return during the spring, which has traditionally been the busy season for homebuying. But that did not materialize after the Trump administration’s tariff threats spooked buyers.
Now, Mr. Cathcart said he believes the timing is right. “There is pent up demand from the spring,” he said.
Although mortgage rates are still relatively more expensive than in the early days of the pandemic, they are cheaper than last year. And home prices are lower than a year earlier.
The national home price index, which removes the priciest transactions, fell 0.1 per cent to $687,300 from July to August. Home values in Toronto and Vancouver and their neighbouring suburbs declined, while home prices in the Prairies and Atlantic Canada increased month over month.
Compared to a year earlier, the typical home price across the country was down 3.5 per cent.