Toronto and Vancouver still have the strongest influence on Canadian home prices
Residential sales prices nationwide have slightly crawled down last month, but on the whole, majority of Canadian markets are still exhibiting real estate values “just below peak,” the latest edition of the Teranet–National Bank of Canada House Price Index (TNB HPI) showed.
October values were merely 0.05% lower than the peak observed in September, according to housing information portal Better Dwelling.
This was supported by figures from CREA, which indicated that the national average home sales price last month went up by 5.8% annually, up to around $525,000.
As has been the trend in the last few years, two major markets largely dictated the value of Canada’s residential property.
“The national average price is heavily skewed by sales in the GVA and GTA, two of Canada’s most active and expensive housing markets,” CREA stated. “Excluding these two markets from calculations cuts almost $125,000 from the national average price, trimming it to around $400,000 and reducing the year-over-year gain to 4.7%.”
According to the TNB HPI numbers, Toronto prices shrunk by 0.16% from September, but remained 4.06% higher annually.
On the other hand, Vancouver had its first month-over-month increase at 0.17%, although still 6.17% lower compared to October last year. The average sales price is hovering at 7.26% lower than the peak reached in July 2018.
Vital markets elsewhere are exhibiting divergent trajectories. In Calgary, October prices were 0.11% lower monthly, 1.70% lower annually, and 5.81% lower than the peak measured in October 2014
In Montreal, home sale prices inched down by 0.08% monthly (which also represented the peak so far), while being 5.97% higher compared to October 2018.
