Canadian Existing-Home Sales Steady in April, Ending Three-Month Slide

On Thursday, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reported that the number of home sales recorded over Canadian MLS Systems was virtually unchanged in April. This marks a pause in the trend of declining activity since the beginning of the year.

CREA notes that demand is currently hovering around levels seen during the second half of 2022, and the first and third quarters of 2023.

New listings declined by 1% month-over-month. Combined with flat sales, the national sales-to-new listings ratio climbed to 46.8% from 46.4% in March. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.9%, with readings between 45% and 65% generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions.

There were 183,000 properties listed for sale on all Canadian MLS Systems at the end of April, up 14.3% from a year earlier but still below the long-term average for that time of the year (201,000).

There were 5.1 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of April, in line with the long-term average of five months of inventory. Based on one standard deviation above and below that long-term average, a seller’s market would be below 3.6 months and a buyer’s market would be above 6.4 months, CREA said.

The National Composite MLS Home Price Index (HPI) declined 1.2%. The non-seasonally adjusted National Composite MLS HPI was down 3.6% year-over-year.