Cold weather did little to chill out Canada’s red-hot housing market in January, with new data Tuesday showing average house prices have increased by 21 per cent in the past year to $748,450 тАФ the highest on record.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), which represents more than 100,000 Realtors across the country, said Tuesday that the volume of homes being sold has plateaued, largely because of a lack of inventory. But prices continue their record-setting ascent.
After a brief lull early┬аin the pandemic, Canada’s housing market has been on fire for the better part of two years now, as buyers have taken advantage of record-low interest rates to buy larger and more expensive homes.
January is typically a slow month for the housing market, as buyers and sellers tend to stay on the sidelines until the spring. But COVID-19 has done away with those seasonal trends:┬аJanuary┬а2021 was the busiest January for home sales on record, CREA says, and 2022 was the second busiest ever.
CREA┬аnotes that┬аthe average selling price can be misleading, because it can be skewed by sales in large, expensive markets like Toronto and Vancouver. So the Realtor group touts a second figure, known as the Multiple Listings Service House Price Index (HPI), as a better gauge of the market, because it is adjusted based on the type of housing sold in every market.
But the HPI, too, has never been higher. It increased by 2.9 per cent in January alone┬атАФ┬аanother┬аrecord. And on an annual basis, it’s up by 28 per cent тАФ also the highest it’s ever been.
More to come.
