According
to statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA),
national home sales activity edged up on a month-over-month basis in January
2013. National sales activity has held fairly steady after gearing down last
August in the wake of tightened mortgage lending rules.
Highlights:
·
National home sales rose 1.3% from December to January.
·
Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity came in 5.2% under levels in
January 2012.
·
The number of newly listed homes rose 1.6% from December to January.
·
The Canadian housing market remains firmly in balanced territory.
·
National average sale price was up 2% year-over-year in January.
·
The MLS® HPI rose 3.1% in January, the smallest gain since April 2011.
The
number of home sales processed through the MLS® Systems of real estate Boards
and Associations and other cooperative listing systems in Canada edged up 1.3
per cent on a month-over-month basis in January 2013. This marks the fifth
month in a row that national sales activity has shown little change from levels
in the previous month.
Home
sales picked up in about half of all local markets in January from the previous
month, including some of Canada’s most active. Greater Toronto and Greater
Vancouver posted monthly sales increases of 5.6 per cent and 4.7 per cent
respectively, while sales in Edmonton climbed by nearly 10 per cent on the
month. Activity gains there were partially offset by softer sales in Ottawa,
the Fraser Valley, Montreal, Regina, London and St. Thomas, and Calgary.
“There is
little new to report about national sales activity, which continues to hold
fairly steady at the lower levels first reached when mortgage rules were
tightened in mid-2012,” said CREA President Wayne Moen. “That said, things are
becoming more interesting among local markets, with improving sales in
Vancouver and Toronto likely to come as something of a surprise to some. As
always, all real estate is local, so buyers and sellers should speak to their
REALTOR® to understand how the housing market is shaping up where they live or
are considering to live.”
Actual
(not seasonally adjusted) activity came in 5.2 per cent below levels reported
in January 2012. About two-thirds of local markets posted year-over-year
declines in sales activity in January. Notable exceptions include Calgary,
Edmonton, Winnipeg, Windsor-Essex, and Guelph.
“Year-over-year
declines in activity have received attention lately, and understandably so since
they’re more exciting compared to the fairly steady month-over-month trend for
national sales following changes made last year to mortgage regulations and
lending guidelines,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist. “If national
sales activity remains stable near the levels we’ve been seeing since last
August, then year-over-year comparisons will begin fading after the crucial
spring buying season. Until then, the focus may remain on how sales were
stronger in the first half of last year compared to lower but stable national
activity since then.”
The
number of newly listed homes rose 1.6 per cent month-over-month in January,
their first monthly increase since last September.
New
listings rose in a number of Canada’s most active markets, led by Greater
Toronto. The monthly increase there reversed a decline of similar magnitude one
month earlier. New listings also rose in Greater Vancouver, Montreal, the
Fraser Valley, and Vancouver Island, which also marked a reversal in a
declining trend for new listings in the final months of 2012.
With
sales and new listings both having edged higher, the national sales-to-new
listings ratio was little changed at 50.3 per cent in January compared to 50.4
per cent in December. Its reading has held fairly steady around this level for
the past six months. Based on a sales-to-new listings ratio of between 40 to 60
per cent, about two-thirds of all local markets were in balanced market
territory in January.
The
number of months of inventory is another important measure of balance between
housing supply and demand. It represents the number of months it would take to
sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity, and it too was
little changed in January.
Nationally,
there were 6.6 months of inventory at the end of January 2013, down slightly
from 6.7 months reported at the end of December. The number of months of
inventory nationally has held between 6.5 and 6.7 months since August last
year.
The
actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average price for homes sold in
January 2013 was $354,754, representing an increase of two per cent from
January 2012. There were fewer sales compared to year-ago levels in relatively
pricey Greater Vancouver, which continues to exert a strong gravitational pull
on the national average sale price. Excluding Greater Vancouver from the
national average price calculation yields a year-over-year increase of 3.3 per
cent.
Unlike
average price, the MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) is not affected by changes
in the mix of sales, so it provides the best gauge of Canadian home price
trends.
The
Aggregate Composite MLS® HPI rose 3.1 per cent on a year-over-year basis in
January. This marks the ninth time in as many months that the year-over-year
gain shrank and the slowest rate of increase since April 2011.
Year-over-year
price gains decelerated for one-storey single family homes (+4.4 per cent) and
two-storey single family homes (+3.6 per cent). By contrast, year-over-year
growth held steady for apartment units (+1.2 per cent), and picked up in the
townhouse/row segment (+2.2 per cent).
The MLS®
HPI rose fastest in Regina (+8.8% year-over-year), although the increase was
the smallest since December 2011. Price growth also moderated in Greater
Toronto (+3.8% year-over-year) and in Greater Montreal (+2.6% year-over-year).
By
contrast, the MLS® HPI saw year-on-year growth accelerate in Calgary (+8.0%)
and the Fraser Valley (+0.7%). In Greater Vancouver, the MLS® HPI posted a 2.8
per cent year-over-year decline in January.
Copyright CREA -reprinted with permission
