{"id":28695,"date":"2026-11-02T10:10:33","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T18:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/?p=28695"},"modified":"2026-11-02T10:16:25","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T18:16:25","slug":"canadian-housing-markets-balanced-less-room-for-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/2026\/11\/canadian-housing-markets-balanced-less-room-for-optimism\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Housing Markets Balanced, Less Room for Optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">CREA has removed 18,806 sales from its 2026 forecast since July. Sellers waiting for a stronger fall market have been given another reason to lower their expectations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The association now expects 444,530 residential sales in 2026, down 5.2% from 2025. September sales fell 2.3% from August after seasonal adjustment, while new listings fell 1.8%. The market lost buyers faster than it lost new supply.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The national benchmark price slipped 0.4% in September after four months of stability. It was 3.4% below September 2025 on an unadjusted basis. The average sale price fell 1.6% annually to $666,538.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A seller can point to a comparable sale from the summer. The buyer still has to finance the purchase at today\u2019s rate. An agent defending an ambitious asking price needs to account for what has happened to the buyer\u2019s borrowing capacity since that comparable sold.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Balanced, with Fewer Buyers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Canada\u2019s sales-to-new-listings ratio eased to 48.8% from 49.1% in August, below its long-term average of 54.7%. It remains within CREA\u2019s roughly 45% to 65% range for a balanced national market.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There were slightly more than 200,000 homes listed at month-end, up 1.8% annually. Seasonally adjusted months of inventory edged up to 4.9%, close to its historical average. Canada has a slow market without an exceptional national surplus of listings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A smaller pool of buyers gives an overpriced listing fewer chances to find someone willing to stretch. Sellers can hold out, but the mortgage, property tax and maintenance bills keep arriving.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The listing presentation should start with the homes competing for the same buyer, the prices that have recently produced a sale and the seller\u2019s cost of waiting. A national forecast of stable prices is thin support for an asking price that local buyers are rejecting.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Ontario Has Less Room for Optimism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ontario\u2019s residential sales-to-new-listings ratio was 41.9% in September, compared with 43.9% in British Columbia, 57.6% in Alberta and 64.4% in Manitoba. These seasonally adjusted provincial figures describe very different levels of competition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ontario\u2019s ratio barely changed from August\u2019s 41.8%. Conditions were already weak. September added another price decline as buyers faced higher borrowing costs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">CREA\u2019s seasonally adjusted benchmark fell 0.5% in Greater Toronto, 0.8% in Mississauga, 1.2% in Hamilton-Burlington and 1.5 in Ottawa during September. Kitchener-Waterloo and London and St. Thomas recorded monthly gains.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Agree on a price-review date before the listing goes live. If showings and offers fail to materialize, the seller should already know what happens next. Waiting until the listing has gone stale makes that conversation more expensive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>The Forecast Keeps Losing Sales<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">July\u2019s forecast called for 463,336 sales in 2026 and 480,567 in 2027. October cuts those totals to 444,530 and 464,235. CREA also revised the 2025 comparison base between forecasts; these are changes in projected transaction counts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The price outlook moved much less. CREA expects the national annual average to rise 0.2% to $681,681 in 2026, followed by 1.2% to $689,909 in 2027. Ontario is forecast to record a 3% average-price decline this year and a 0.7% increase next year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These annual transaction averages can stay close to flat while current benchmarks fall. They also change with the mix of homes sold. A seller cannot take the national forecast\u2019s 0.2% increase and apply it to their own property.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Pent-Up Demand is Still Waiting<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We are no longer hearing the same confidence about pent-up demand. CREA still mentions it in the 2027 forecast, but September delivered fewer sales and another downgrade. People who would like to move still need an income and a mortgage that will pay for it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The projected rebound depends on slow economic growth, a return to higher population growth and greater certainty about rates. CREA assumes limited Bank of Canada action over the next year, even though markets were pricing approximately 100 basis points of increases when the forecast was prepared. More tightening would make an already modest recovery harder to deliver.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">CREA\u2019s 4.4% sales rebound in 2027 would still leave transactions about 0.9% below 2025. Brokerages should be able to carry their costs if that rebound disappoints. Sellers have a more immediate problem: the price needs to work for a buyer who can close now. Another forecast revision will not cover the cost of waiting.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/realestatemagazine.ca\/foch-crea-cuts-its-sales-forecast-again-sellers-should-take-it-seriously\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CREA Cuts Its Sales Forecast Again. Sellers Should Take It Seriously<\/a> by Daniel Foch | REM Real Estate Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CREA has removed 18,806 sales from its 2026 forecast since July. Sellers waiting for a stronger fall market have been given another reason to lower their expectations. The association now &hellip; [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/2026\/11\/canadian-housing-markets-balanced-less-room-for-optimism\/\">read more<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-updates","category-real-estate"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Canadian Housing Markets Balanced, Less Room for Optimism &#8226; Rory C Real Estate | Oakwyn Realty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/2026\/11\/canadian-housing-markets-balanced-less-room-for-optimism\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Canadian Housing Markets Balanced, Less Room for Optimism &#8226; Rory C Real Estate | Oakwyn Realty\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"CREA has removed 18,806 sales from its 2026 forecast since July. 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