{"id":66662,"date":"2025-11-17T20:09:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2025\/11\/17\/home-sales-and-prices-edged-up-in-october-but-still-down-year-over-year-crea\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T20:09:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:09:03","slug":"home-sales-and-prices-edged-up-in-october-but-still-down-year-over-year-crea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2025\/11\/17\/home-sales-and-prices-edged-up-in-october-but-still-down-year-over-year-crea\/","title":{"rendered":"Home sales and prices edged up in October but still down year over year: CREA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<br \/><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Budget offers tax relief to &#039;very small&#039; group of homebuyers\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZgfaVrp78qA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p> <span>Home sales and prices were down year-over-year in October but edged up from September as Canada\u2019s housing market continues to gradually recover from trade war-induced shocks in early 2025, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) said Monday.<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>In its latest housing market report, CREA said 42,068 homes changed hands across the country in October, up 0.9 per cent from the previous month but down 4.3 per cent compared to last year.<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>Shaun Cathcart, senior economist at CREA, said sales activity is \u201cmoving in the right direction,\u201d albeit slowly due to persistent tariff-related economic uncertainty.<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>\u201cThe market really burst to life last October in this very narrow window of time between when rates had come down but we weren\u2019t in a trade war yet. So, we\u2019re down a little bit from that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut in general, compared to earlier this year, things have been trending up steadily.\u201d<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>The non-seasonally adjusted national average\u00a0sale price\u00a0was up 0.2 per cent from September but down 1.1 per cent year-over-year at $690,195. <\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>The non-seasonally adjusted\u00a0National Composite MLS Home Price Index\u00a0was down three per cent in October compared to last year, which CREA noted was the smallest year-over-year decline since March.<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>Cathcart said home prices are down from a year ago due to weakness in the first quarter of 2025, when \u201cthe initial tariff shock scared everyone back to the sidelines and pulled the rug out from under the spring market.\u201d However, he said prices are no longer falling.<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>\u201cI think that once we get through the winter and into the beginning of next year, you\u2019re going to see those year-over-year declines shrink,\u201d said Cathcart. \u201cWe might even move back into positive territory, because I don\u2019t see prices falling further at this point, as buyers come back into the market.\u201d<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>Properties listed for sale across all Canadian MLS systems were up 7.2 per cent year-over-year with 189,000 listings in October, which CREA said is \u201cvery close\u201d to the long-term average for this time of year.<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>CREA reported 79,225 new listings hit the market last month, down 1.4 per cent from September. The association said fewer listings and increased sales activity \u201ctightened\u201d October\u2019s sales-to-new listings ratio to 52.2 per cent, compared to 51 per cent from the month before. <\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>The ratio is below the long-term average of 54.9 per cent, with \u201creadings roughly between 45 per cent and 65 per cent generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions,\u201d CREA said in a release.<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>CREA said inventory was \u201cbasically unchanged\u201d from July, August and September at 4.4 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of October <span class=\"TextRun SCXW73169004 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW73169004 BCX0\">\u2014<\/span><\/span><span class=\"EOP SCXW73169004 BCX0\">\u00a0<\/span>the lowest level since January and below the long-term average of five months. Anything below 3.6 months of inventory is considered a seller\u2019s market, while 6.4 months or more is considered a buyer\u2019s market.<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>Despite concerns over wider economic uncertainty and job security tempering the real estate market, the fact that Canada has a chronic shortage of housing relative to its population continues to drive demand, said Don Kottick, president of real estate brokerage REMAX Canada.<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>\u201cThere\u2019s a large segment of the population that is going to need to move based on life reasons, whether it\u2019s divorce, whether they need to downsize, or whether they need to expand because their families are growing,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, that pent-up demand is not going away, and it\u2019s just a matter of when it is going to break.\u201d<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>Kottick said affordability continues to be a top concern for homebuyers, and the combination of prices coming down in many regions and lower interest rates may encourage activity in 2026.<\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>Since January, Bank of Canada has issues four cuts to its benchmark interest rate, which currently sits at 2.25 per cent. <\/span><br \/>\n<span>\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>Cathcart said many Canadians may have been hesitant to lock into a five-year fixed rate \u2014 the most popular mortgage term \u2014 when they thought interest rates were still falling, but could change their minds after the central bank signalled in its last decision on Oct. 29 that it may be done with easing.<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span>\u201cI think that could really draw a lot of those buyers off the sidelines,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the only question is whether that happens over the winter, which is typically slower, or whether we have to wait for next spring.\u201d<\/span> <\/p>\n<ul class=\"related_links\">\n<li>Canadian home sales slowed in September, first decline since March<\/li>\n<li>Canada&#8217;s home sales rise nearly 2% for best August in four years: CREA<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <em>\u2022 Email: jswitzer@postmedia.com<\/em> <\/p>\n\n<br \/>Home sales and prices edged up in October but still down year over year: CREA<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>2025-11-17 20:09:03<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home sales and prices were down year-over-year in October but edged up from September as Canada\u2019s housing market continues to gradually recover from trade war-induced shocks in early 2025, the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-66662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/66663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}