09/13/2021
As the summer draws to a close, it’s becoming increasingly evident the fireworks have ended in housing markets across Canada. Early reports from local real estate boards confirmed home resales last month continued to broadly moderate toward (still-solid) pre-pandemic levels. A calmer tone is gradually setting in. It doesn’t mean things are back to normal. Inventories remain exceptionally low in many places—Buyers continue to struggle to find suitable options. Bidding wars are still the norm, despite attracting fewer participants than they did a few months ago. And tight demand-supply conditions are keeping prices at lofty levels, up significantly from a year ago in most markets. Property values also generally increased between July and August. But signs of fatigue have emerged. Waning buyer fervour is producing a diminished pace of price increases. Some markets such as Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton have even seen property values level off in recent months. We expect this trend to spread to other markets as affordability issues weigh more heavily on buyers, and the reopening of spending avenues take some budget room away from housing. That said, anyone hoping for significant price concessions from sellers will likely be disappointed. We expect demand-supply conditions to stay abnormally tight for a while in the majority of major markets, maintaining strong protection against any major price downslide.
