Canadian Housing Demand and Home Prices Continue to Trend Lower in March

On Tuesday, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reported that sales activity recorded over Canadian MLS Systems sank 4.8% in March. Along with declines in each of the three previous months, national home sales are now down 20% from their recent high recorded last November.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, national home sales in Canada fell 9.3% year-over-year in March, marking the lowest level for that month since 2009.

New listings rose 3% from February to March. With sales declining and new supply increasing, the national sales-to-new listings ratio dropped to 45.9%, down from 49.7% in February. This is the lowest level for the ratio since February 2009. The long-term average is 54.9%, with values between 45% and 65% typically indicating a balanced market, CREA noted.

At the end of March, there were 165,800 properties listed for sale, an 18.3% increase from a year earlier but still below the long-term average of about 174,000 for this time of year.

Nationally, there were 5.1 months of inventory on the market at the end of March, the highest level since the early months of the pandemic and approaching the long-term average of five months. A seller’s market is typically defined as below 3.6 months of inventory, while a buyer’s market is above 6.4 months.

The National Composite MLS Home Price Index (HPI) declined 1% in March—the largest monthly drop since November 2023. This renewed softening in prices was most pronounced in British Columbia and Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe. In contrast, home prices continued to rise across much of the Prairies, Quebec, and the East Coast.

Year-over-year, the non-seasonally adjusted National Composite MLS HPI was down 2.1% in March. The national average home price was $678,331, down 3.7% from March 2024.