CANADA – According to statistics recently released by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), national home sales were down slightly in January 2017 on a month-over-month basis.
Highlights include:
- National home sales declined 1.3% from December 2016 to January 2017;
- Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity in January was up 1.9% from a year earlier;
- The number of newly listed homes dropped 6.7% from December 2016 to January 2017;
- The MLS Home Price Index (HPI) in January was up 15.0% year-over-year (y-o-y); and
- The national average sale price was little changed (+0.2%) y-o-y in January.
Home sales over Canadian MLS Systems edged down by 1.3% month-over-month in January 2017, putting them at the second lowest monthly level since the fall of 2015 and only slightly above levels recorded last November when recently tightened mortgage regulations came into effect.
Sales activity was down from the previous month in about half of all local markets, led by three of Canada’s largest urban centres: the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Greater Vancouver and Montreal.
Actual (not seasonally adjusted) sales activity was up 1.9% compared to the same month last year. While sales were up from year-ago levels in about two-thirds of all local housing markets including in the GTA, Calgary, Edmonton, London and St Thomas, and Montreal, they were down significantly in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.
The number of newly listed homes dropped 6.7% in January 2017, the second consecutive monthly decline. New listings were down in about two-thirds of all local markets, led by the GTA and environs across Vancouver Island.
With the monthly decline in new listings surpassing the decline in sales, the national sales-to-new listings ratio jumped to 67.7% in January compared to 64.0% in December and 60.2% in November.
A sales-to-new listings ratio between 40 and 60 is generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions, with readings below and above this range indicating buyers’ and sellers’ markets respectively.
The ratio was above 60% in about half of all local housing markets in January, the vast majority of which are located in British Columbia, in and around the GTA and across southwestern Ontario. A monthly decline in newly listed homes further tightened housing markets that were already in sellers’ market territory.
The number of months of inventory is another important measure of the balance between housing supply and demand. It represents how long it would take to completely liquidate current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
There were 4.6 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of January 2017 – unchanged from December 2016 and a six-year low for the measure.
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