Residential Market Commentary - A slight slump in December, but high hopes for spring

Canada’s realtors are looking forward to a robust spring market even as December closed out 2024 with a slowdown.

The latest figures from the Canadian Real Estate Association show sales volume slipped 5.8% from November to December, but was up 19.2% compared to a year earlier.  For the fourth quarter as a whole sales were up 10% over Q3.

New listings also declined in December, dipping 1.7%.  But because of the drop in sales, the sales-to-new-listings ratio eased to 56.9% from a 17-month high of 59.3% in November.

The national average home price for December came in at $676,640, a 2.5% increase over a year earlier.  CREA’s preferred measure of pricing, The National Composite MLS Home Price Index, rose 0.3% from November to December 2024 but was down 0.2% from December of 2023.

CREA expects lower mortgage rates and two-and-a-half years of pent-up demand to bolster the usual spring surge in market activity.

For the year ahead, CREA is forecasting nearly 533,000 residential properties will change hands in 2025, an 8.6% increase over 2024.  The national average home price is predicted to rise by nearly 5.0% to about $722,000.

For 2026 the forecast calls for a 4.5% increase in sales, to 557,000 units, and a price increase of 3.3%, to a little more than $746,000.