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 a real estate broker, working in the real estate industry for over 15 years with various notable organizations such as Interrent REIT, CBRE, and Hydro One. Daniel and his team have transacted over $250M in real estate across a variety of asset classes. During his academic career, Daniel was an active instructor, contributor and researcher in the University of Guelph’s Real Estate Faculty, founder of The University’s International URECC event, and was awarded for affordable housing innovation by CMHC & The University of Guelph during his tenure at the university.
Daniel is a regular contributor in the Canadian media as one of the most trusted, unbiased, and balanced sources of real estate insight. As a result, his real estate expertise has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CBC, BNN Bloomberg, and The Globe and Mail, among others. Daniel has built a captive audience of over 100,000 real estate investors across multiple social media platforms by providing primary research and market analysis.
