Year-end sales activity is likely to impart significant momentum on to the 2022 market, CREA says
Canada’s home sales activity edged up in November, building on the gains seen in October, according to figures from the Canadian Real Estate Association.
On a year-to-date basis, the 630,634 residential sales nationwide have already exceeded the annual record of 552,423 sales for the whole of 2020, CREA said.
The number of home sales transactions nationwide ticked up by 0.6% month over month in November, following a 9% increase in October. Slower activity in Montreal and the Greater Toronto Area was compensated by strength in Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, and the inner British Columbia markets, CREA said.
“November provided another month of evidence that the housing supply/demand issues facing the country have not gone away,” said Cliff Stevenson, chair of CREA. “Even at what is traditionally the slow time of year for housing, conditions and price trends are at the same record levels we saw this spring. Things may calm down a bit through the balance of December and January, but next year's spring market will no doubt be an interesting one.”
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The momentum would be especially apparent in terms of robust demand from “an unobservable but no doubt large number of households waiting for new listings to show up,” CREA said. “Many of those listings will likely show up as existing owners continue to move around in record numbers in response to the changes to our lives since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
CREA predicted that on a monthly and quarterly basis, sales will remain “historically strong” in 2022, “while at the same time trending slowly back in the direction of more typical levels” due to depleting inventory, higher prices, and higher interest rates.
“Although increased churn in resale markets resulting from the COVID-19-related shake-up is expected to continue to boost activity above what was normal before COVID-19,” CREA said. “Indeed, it is possible that many of the moves associated with changes related to remote work won’t play out until further down the road when we have more certainty about what the future will look like post-COVID-19.”
National home sales activity is likely to fall by 8.6% to around 610,700 units in 2022, which will make it the second-best year on record, CREA said. The national average home sales price is forecast to grow by 7.6% annually to around $739,500.
