Canada shows hike in home sales in April

Last month, housing sales in Canada rose by 11.3% from March as activity in the real estate market kept going up.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), there were 38,164 units sold in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, although the supply crisis almost didn’t show any signs of improvement with inventory reported still at a 20-year low level.

Although home sales in April were 19.5% lower than a year earlier, CREA says the annual decrease was much less pronounced than in previous months. It means that the long housing market slowdown seems to be coming to an end.

The seasonally adjusted number of new listings went up by 1.6% on a monthly basis and reached 54,355. However, the actual number of new listings showed an annual decline of about 26%.

The report says the actual average home price rose to $716,000, marking an increase of $103,500 since the beginning of the year. At the same time, the number was still 3.9% lower than a year ago.

CREA’s senior economist Shaun Cathcart doesn’t find the housing market heating surprising due to interest rate increases coming to their end and home prices having declined sharply over the previous year.

The first week of May reported a wave of new supply, he noted, “which means some of those April buyers were existing owners now trying to sell their current homes. That could lead to a virtuous circle that may encourage more first-time buyers to enter the market this year.”