The Canadian home market remains robust as pent-up demand from the spring continued to unwind into the fall.
The November numbers from the Canadian Real Estate Association show sales hit another new monthly record, up 32.1% compared to a year ago. Month-over-month, sales slipped a modest 1.6% from October.
The national average price for a home has now topped $603,000, a 13.8% increase from last November. Of course, the two busiest and most expensive markets in the country – Toronto and Vancouver – continue to skew that figure. When they are taken out of the calculation the national average price drops to about $481,000.
A key component in the Toronto and Vancouver markets is showing a marked slowdown. Downtown condos have seen a sharp decrease in price acceleration. While single, detached homes and other ground-oriented housing experienced a 14.1% increase, condos rose 4.9%.
CREA expects to see Canada’s national average home price rise by another 9% in 2021, to more than $620,000.
The realtors say tight supply is driving prices. New listings were down by 1.6% in November holding the sales-to-new listings ratio at 74.8%. That is one of the highest levels ever recorded for the metric. The long-term average sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.2%.
There were just 2.4 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of November 2020 – the lowest reading on record for this measure.