Inventory continues to be a main factor in the national market’s dynamics
Home sales nationwide saw a 3.5% month-over-month slowdown in July, the smallest of four consecutive monthly declines since March, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.
However, while the July downturn was less broad than the declines seen in the previous months, “sales were still down in about two-thirds of all local markets,” CREA said. “Declines were led by Edmonton and Calgary, although that may be because the current trend of softening sales is a little more recent in these markets.”
Last month’s sales results also marked the second-best July on record, despite a 15.2% annual decrease in transactions.
“The slowdown we’ve seen in home sales over the last few months has not been surprising, given that the level of activity we were seeing back in March was unsustainable,” said Shaun Cathcart, senior economist at CREA. “But we are not returning to normal, we are only returning to where we were before COVID, which was a far cry from normal.”
Read more: What’s happening with Canada home sales activity?
This is because the number of new listings fell by 8.8% month-over-month, bringing the sales-to-new-listings ratio up from 69.9% in June to 74% in July.
Supply declines were most apparent in the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary, CREA said.
“The problem of high housing demand amid low supply has not gone anywhere – it’s arguably worse,” Cathcart said. “And after years of everyone agreeing that medium-density housing was the future, we are still referring to it as the ‘missing’ middle.”
The actual non-seasonally adjusted national average home price grew by 15.6% annually to reach just shy of $662,000 in July.
