The number of homes sold nationwide last July was down 29.3% from July 2021, according to the latest data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) released on Monday.
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On a monthly basis, house sales fell by 5.3% between June and July.
“While this is the fifth straight month-on-month decline in real estate activity, it is also the weakest of the five,” ACI noted in its report.
Sales were particularly down in Greater Toronto, Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley, Calgary and Edmonton.
“The trend of recent months continues: sales are slowing and prices are falling in some relatively more expensive markets across the country, as well as areas where prices have risen the most over the past two years,” said Jill Oudil, President the ICA, in a press release on Monday.
“However, the demand that was so strong a few months ago has not abated, but some buyers will probably wait and see what happens to borrowing costs and prices. When they come back on the market they will have a little more choice, but not as much as you might have thought,” he added.
CREA data shows that the number of listed properties is also down 5.3% month-on-month.
“With both sales and registrations down 5.3% in July, the sales-to-registrations ratio remains unchanged at 51.7%, slightly below the long-term national average of 55.1%,” we read.
“A new addition is the decline in new registrations in July (…). This is only a month of data at this point, but it leads us to believe that even though the supply of properties for sale is still at historically low levels, it leads us to believe that some sellers and owners have also decided to wait Cathcart, Senior Economist at CREA.
Regionally, most of the declines in recent months have been recorded in Ontario and, to a lesser extent, British Columbia.
On the prairie, prices remain more or less stable, while in Quebec they are just beginning to fall. On the east coast, prices generally continue to rise, but at a much slower pace.
The real average price of homes sold in the country in July 2022 was $629,971, down 5% compared to the same month last year.
CREA notes that the national median price is heavily influenced by sales in Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, two of the busiest and most expensive markets in Canada. If we exclude these two markets from the calculation, the national median price actually falls by about $104,000.