Spring has finally brought a breath of fresh air to the real estate market in Canada. The Canadian Real Estate Association released its numbers for April, and we saw an 11.3 per cent increase in home sales, our third consecutive month of increasing volume and the largest increase in sales volume since the crash of 2022.
While home sales in April were slower than average and inventory was tight, the sales volume rate of change, excluding the COVID anomaly, was only surpassed during the GFC. pic.twitter.com/A2yMtNY1q0
— Pierre (@PHfloor) May 15, 2023
While monthly home sales volume is still relatively low—19.5 per cent below last year—this consistent growth represents a meaningful return toward the 10-year monthly moving average.
Still no supply
The lack of supply continues to be the major theme here. Sellers are simply not nearly as active in the market as buyers are. While listings did edge up slightly since last month, supply is historically low. Although demand is low, supply is still far lower, and so the absorption of properties has sped up.
More listings are selling
Absorption is best measured by the sales-to-new-listings ratio, which increased meaningfully to 70.2 per cent from 64.1 per cent a month prior, both well above the long-term average of 55.1 per cent.
This imbalance has kept the market in a state of excess demand, or a “seller’s market,” and allowed prices to rise into the spring market with a little bit more than seasonal growth – with prices up 1.6 per cent since last month.
Daniel Foch is the Chief Real Estate Officer at Valery.ca, and Host of Canada’s #1 real estate podcast. As co-founder of The Habistat, the onboard data science platform for TRREB & Proptx, he helped the real estate industry to become more transparent, using real-time housing market data to inform decision making for key stakeholders. With over 15 years of experience in the real estate industry, Daniel has advised a broad spectrum of real estate market participants, from 3 levels of government to some of Canada’s largest developers.
Daniel is a trusted voice in the Canadian real estate market, regularly contributing to media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CBC, Bloomberg, and The Globe and Mail. His expertise and balanced insights have earned him a dedicated audience of over 100,000 real estate investors across multiple social media platforms, where he shares primary research and market analysis.
