Lower rates begin to breathe new life into housing market
UNSPLASH/Dillon Kydd
Lower borrowing costs are breathing new life into the Canadian housing market.
Lower interest rates are beginning to breathe some life into the housing market, but builders continue to be wary about new construction.
Data out this week from the Canadian Real Estate Association showed home sales rose 1.9 per cent nationally in September, with strong gains in three of the past four months.
The Bank of Canada has lowered interest rates three times since June and is widely expected to cut again at its meeting next week.
Sales, however, remain well below average levels and sellers seem keen to unload properties as demand picks up. New listings jumped 4.9 per cent last month.
Prices in Canada’s housing market are little changed this year and down about 4 per cent from 2023. The average price of a home sold in Canada last month was $669,630. Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver all posted above national average gains in sales last month.
Separately, Canada’s housing agency—CMHC—released September data for new housing builds that showed a pick up in new developments in September, after a slump in activity over the summer. But new builds, which are running at an annual pace of just over 220,000, are still well below numbers from earlier this year and not even half the pace needed to meet the government’s housing targets of more than half a million a year in new construction.
