Canada’s housing market continued to heat up in May as sales rose in most local markets. While the number of new listings climbed, it still remains at historically low levels.
“The rebound has been evident for a number of months at this point, but May really drove the point home with year-over-year comparisons for both national sales activity and national average home price back in positive territory,” CREA chair Larry Cerqua said in a statement. “That being said, the degree to which a recovery will be able to play out on the sales side as opposed to the price side will come down to supply, which remains quite low.
Homebuyers rushed to the market this spring after the Bank of Canada paused rate hikes in January, sparking hopes of lower mortgage costs. However, the central bank resumed its campaign to tighten monetary policy by raising the policy rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.75 per cent last week.