The news marks their first increase in eight months
Home sales across Canada rose by 1.3% in October, the first time that they have increased on a monthly basis since February.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) revealed on Tuesday that 60% of all local markets had seen a jump in sales, with the Greater Vancouver Area (GVA) – one of the country’s hottest markets before cooling in recent months – posting a 6% increase.
The number of newly listed homes also saw an increase over the previous month, rising by 2.2% over October, as the actual national average home price came in at $644,643. That was a drop of nearly 10% from the same time last year – and sales were also down significantly over October 2021, plummeting by 36% on a yearly basis.
CREA’s chair Jill Oudil indicated in remarks accompanying the release that sellers and buyers were likely to continue “coming off the sidelines” in 2023, although she emphasized that the market remained “very different” to that which prevailed last year.
The association’s senior economist Shaun Cathcart, meanwhile, suggested that a further uptick could be on the way.
“October provided another month’s worth of data suggesting the slowdown in Canadian housing markets is winding up,” he said. “Sales actually popped up from September to October, and the decline in prices on a month-to-month basis got smaller for the fourth time in a row.”
