Canada’s housing market remains red hot.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reports that January home sales rose 35.2% compared with a year earlier and were up 2% compared to December 2020. The increase came as the national sales-to-new listings ratio rose to 90.7% -- the highest level on record. The previous monthly record was 81.5% set in 2002.
The national average price of a home sold also soared to a record $621,525 in January, up 22.8% from the same month last year. CREA said market conditions were pushed to record levels in January because people have held off putting their homes up for sale during the pandemic, leaving fewer options for people to fight over.
CREA found the Greater Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area, two of the country's most active and expensive housing markets, were heating up very quickly in January. The average seasonally adjusted price of a home in Greater Toronto was $941,100 and in Vancouver was just over $1 million.
When the associated removed data from both those regions from the $621,525 national price average, it found that the average price of a home in Canada lowered by $129,000.
CREA said year-over-year price increases between 25% and 30% were seen in many regions of Ontario, including Barrie, Niagara, Grey-Bruce Owen Sound, Huron Perth, Kawartha Lakes, London and St. Thomas, North Bay, Simcoe and Southern Georgian Bay.
However, the largest year-over-year gains -- above 30% -- were recorded in the Lakelands region of Ontario cottage country, Northumberland Hills, Quinte, Tillsonburg District and Woodstock-Ingersoll.
CREA said January price gains were in the 10% to 15% range in Greater Toronto, Mississauga, Chilliwack, British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, Winnipeg and on Vancouver Island.
Montreal's home average prices reached $434,200, up 16.6% compared to last January. Home prices rose by as much as 10% in Victoria, Greater Vancouver, Regina and Saskatoon and by about 2% in Calgary and Edmonton.
