Canadian Real Estate Sales Drop 3%, Vancouver Over 10x Worse
Canadian real estate sales continue its slide lower. Canada Real Estate Association (CREA) numbers show sales fell across the country in October. The trend of higher sales in Ontario and East continued, with mixed results in the GTA. BC’s continued declines were the most significant drag on the numbers this month. Canadian real estate sales came in lower last month. CREA reported 39,313 unadjusted sales in October, down 3.39% from last year. The number is fairly normal, falling just 17 homes under the 10 year average. The slide is the second consecutive time we’ve seen October fall since hitting a sales peak in 2016. Declines are generally bad, but this one isn’t too far off base. It’s the lowest October since 2013, but it’s larger than half of Octobers over the past 10 years. September was unusually weak however, we saw the fewest September sales since 2007. There’s a good chance many of those September sales were pushed into October. The fastest growing large urban real estate markets were Quebec City, London, and Montreal. Quebec City saw 567 sales in October, an increase of 13.4% when compared to the same month last year. London saw 904 sales, up 12.3% from last year. Montreal came in third with 3,731 sales, up 11.3% from last year. Quebec City and Montreal didn’t see a boom with the rest of Canada over the past few years, so they’re playing catch up. The fastest declines were observed in Vancouver, Hamilton, and Victoria. Vancouver had the biggest declines with 1,995 sales in October, down 35.1% from last year. Hamilton was a distant second with 1,035 sales, down 13.1% from last year. Victoria reported just 556 sales, down 12.4% from last year. Two of the largest declines in BC aren’t a huge surprise, considering the general market slump. All but one of the province’s boards (Northern BC) reported a decline in sales compared to last year.
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