Canadian real estate is showing signs of life… or it’s making its last death rattle. Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) data shows single-family home prices fell in December. A handful of beaten down markets proved to be an exception though, with one rising over $50k in the month. Yes, a single month.
Let’s start with the aggregate, or national, house price index (HPI) for single-family homes. The benchmark price of a home fell to $748,800 in December, dropping 1.2% (-$9,200). Since peaking in March 2022, the national index has plummeted 18.8% (-$181,400). At this point, it’s a little shy of being a “crash.”
A crash is a technical term for asset prices falling more than 20% from its peak within a 12-month period. At this pace, just one more month like December would be enough to make that happen. Right now, 20 cities have HPIs that would meet this criteria when it comes to single-family homes.
Not all markets are suffering declines. Five major cities saw a big jump in the HPI in December, with Oakville-Milton making the biggest. Oakville-Milton’s benchmark hit $1,483,000 in December, up a whopping 3.6% (+$51,500) in just 31 days. The region is still down 22.4% (-$427,100) from the peak, so those buyers haven’t recovered (yet?). It’s an unusual trend reversal since...[READ MORE]
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