Canadian home sales up 76% yearover-year, set new March record: CREA

A trickle of supply started returning to the country’s real estate sector in March, but it did little to cool off heated markets as monthly home sales hit an all-time record, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Thursday.

Sales across the country amounted to 76,259 last month, up 76.2 per cent from 43,283 during the same period last year,

Sales in March were up 5.2 per cent compared with February.

As sales climbed, so did the number of Canadians willing to sell their homes.

The market saw 105,001 new listings during the month, a more than 50 per cent increase from 69,665 last March. Listings were up 7.5 per cent on a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis.

“Remarkable is really the best word I can think of to describe just the strength of the housing market month after month,” said Steve Ranson, chief executive of HomeEquity Bank.

Since last year, people have engaged in bidding wars, put in offers on properties they hadn’t even seen and often, dropped any conditions they might have attached to a bid.

That drove the average price of a home sold in Canada during March up to $716,828, a 31.6 per cent increase from $544,824 at the same time last year.

While pricier markets like Toronto and Vancouver have long felt the heat, suburban and rural regions also saw properties become more expensive and harder to scoop up in recent months because many Canadians were allowed to work from wherever they wanted.

Many have attributed the conditions to a lack of listings, but Doug Porter said new listings hit their highest level on record in seasonally adjusted terms in March.

“The only possible world in which supply can be considered anything remotely in shortage is when stacked up against the extraterrestrial level of demand,” the chief economist at BMO Financial Group said in a note to investors.