Stagnant housing market prompts CREA to trim 2024 outlook

The Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday it now thinks the national housing market will remain in 'more of a holding pattern' until next spring.

The Canadian Real Estate Association is downgrading its housing market forecast for the remainder of the year again, saying the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts haven’t spurred the gradual improvement it previously anticipated.

CREA said Tuesday it now thinks the national housing market will remain in “more of a holding pattern” until next spring with 468,900 properties forecast to trade hands this year.

That would mark a 5.2 per cent increase from 2023, down from its July prediction of a 6.1 per cent bump and its April outlook of 10.5 per cent.

The revised forecast came as CREA reported the latest national home sales and pricing data for September.

It said the average price of a home sold last month amounted to $669,630, up 2.1 per cent from September 2023. The association said it is now forecasting just a 0.9 per cent annual increase for 2024 to $683,200, down from its previous outlook of a 2.5 per cent annual increase.

On a year-over-year basis, the number of homes that changed hands in September rose 6.9 per cent, but CREA said sales ticked up just 1.9 per cent month-over-month from August after the Bank of Canada’s third straight rate cut.

There were 185,427 properties listed for sale across Canada at the end of September, up 16.8 per cent from a year earlier but still below historical averages of around 200,000 for this time of the year.

New listings grew 4.9 per cent month-over-month in September due to broad-based gains across most of the country’s biggest markets.