Hoping to buy a home? Canadian prices forecast to rise by end of 2023
Global News
Royal LePage has adjusted its price forecast for 2023 given stronger-than-expected demand and limited supply. It now expects a price increase.
Home prices in Canada are set to rise this year, according to a new report.
In its latest forecast released Thursday, Royal LePage adjusted its price forecast for 2023 given stronger-than-expected demand and limited supply.
The brokerage now predicts that national home prices will rise 4.5 per cent year-over-year by the end of 2023 instead of dropping one per cent in 2023, as it had predicted in December.
Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper told Global News that high employment and low supply contributed to the change in the forecast.
The report says in Toronto, the aggregate home price is expected to rise 7.5 per cent to $1,148,638 in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to the same quarter last year. In Vancouver, prices are expected to rise 2.5 per cent to $1,239,123, and in Montreal, three per cent to $560,629.
Nationally, the average price is forecast to rise to $791,170 from $757,100.
As the Bank of Canada announced Wednesday that interest rates will hold steady at 4.5 per cent, first-time buyers are now entering the market since rates seem to have achieved some stability, Soper said. But homeowners have been slow to put their properties for sale, causing an imbalance between supply and demand, which drives prices up.
“At this stage, people are just going ‘hip, hip, hooray’ that (interest rates) have reached a stable point and — critically — home prices aren’t going to be falling further,” Soper said.
