As housing prices in Canada continue to rise, sales are starting to taper off.
The Canadian Real Estate Association’s MLS Home Price Index for Ottawa rose by one per cent year-over-year in June.
The index attempts to track the changes in the price of a “typical” home, using a “basket” of attributes and and features. CREA says this approach is better than median prices, which can be “distorted” by outliers and the mixture of properties that sold in a region during a given period. It uses 2005 as a baseline.
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Nationwide, the Aggregate Composite MLS Benchmark price was up 13.6 per cent compared with same period last year. That listing combines the indexes for all “benchmark” homes across the country. Benchmark homes are typical property types for different residential categories in each region.
However, sales fell 0.9 per cent from May to June, the second consecutive monthly decline, but were up 5.2 per cent from the same period last year.
“While national sales activity remains strong, there are still significant differences in housing market trends across Canada,” CREA president Cliff Iverson said in a release. “While home sales activity and price growth are running strong in B.C. and Ontario, they remain subdued in other markets where home buyers are cautious and uncertain about the outlook for their local economy.”
The national trends are being driven by a lack of supply in the Toronto area and B.C.’s lower mainland.
New listings rose nationwide by 2.2 per cent in June, bringing the sales-to-new listings ratio down to 63.3 from 65.3 per cent in May.
However, CREA says a sales-to-new listing ratio of over 60 per cent is indicative of a seller’s market.
