Canadian Real Estate Association
While prediction lowered four per cent, association projects boost in prices
says the year will end with fewer home sales than it had previously predicted.
Tight supply conditions and increasing home prices pushed the Canadian Real Estate Association to forecast the country will wrap the year with fewer home sales than it previously predicted.
The association revealed an updated forecast Wednesday predicting 656,300 homes will change hands this year, an almost 19 per cent rise from 2020 levels, but a nearly four per cent decrease from the 682,900 it predicted earlier this year.
The record-setting number it is predicting is a downward revision because sales fell more rapidly than expected this spring, but comes as immigration levels are rebounding and Canadian businesses closed during the pandemic are being allowed to reopen.
“The good news is that the urgency and frenzy of earlier in 2021 have started to fade and the market has settled down a bit, at least in a relative sense,” CREA wrote in its forecast announcement.
While buyers in many heated markets avoided putting their homes up for sale in the summer, real estate boards and brokers are predicting supply will return this fall, though they don’t expect much relief from
high prices. CREA’s new forecast shows the national average home price is now expected to reach $680,000 this year, up 19.9 per cent from last year.
The earlier forecast it released in June had predicted an average price of nearly $678,000 for 2021.
While CREA expects prices to rise by 5.6 per cent on an annual
basis to reach about $718,000 next year, it is predicting home sales will fall by 12.1 per cent to around 577,000 in 2022.
CREA’s new forecast was released at the same time as the organization publicized August housing numbers that showed the average price reached $680,815 that month, up from $669,654 in July.