Canadian Home Sales Drop for Fifth Consecutive Month in July

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reported on Monday (8-15-22) that home sales recorded over the Canadian MLS® System decreased from June to July 2022 by 5.3%. This marks the fifth consecutive months of declines, but CREA notes it is smallest drop of the past five months. The actual non-seasonally adjusted number of transactions for July were 29.3% below July of 2021.

The number of newly listed homes declined month-over-month by 5.3%. The decline in new supply was broad-based, with listing decreasing in approximately three-quarters of local markets, and that includes large markets as well.

CREA is reporting that with sales and new listings both down by 5.3% in July, the sales-to-new listings ratio remained unchanged at 51.7%—slightly below the long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ration of 55.1%. As of the end of July, CREA reported that there were 3.4 months of inventory available on a national basis. This is still historically low but well above the all-time record of 1.7 months set at the start of 2022.

The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average home price was $629,971 in July 2022, down 5% from the same month last year. The Aggregate Composite MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) edged down 1.7% on a month-over-month basis in July 2022. This was similar to but less than the 1.9% decline recorded in June.