Ottawa, ON, February 17, 2015 - According to statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), national home sales activity was down on a month-over-month basis in January 2015.
Highlights:
• National home sales fell 3.1% from December to January.
• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity stood 2.0% below January 2014 levels.
• The number of newly listed homes rose 0.7% from December to January.
• The Canadian housing market remains balanced.
• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) rose 5.17% year-over-year in January.
• The national average sale price rose 3.1% on a year-over-year basis in January.
The number of home sales processed through the MLS® Systems of Canadian real estate Boards and Associations fell 3.1 per cent in January 2015 compared to December 2014.
January sales were down from the previous month in about 60 per cent of all local housing markets. On a provincial basis, the monthly decline largely reflected fewer sales in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
"As expected, consumer confidence in the Prairies has declined and moved a number of potential homebuyers to the sidelines as a result," said CREA President Beth Crosbie. "By contrast, housing market trends in the Maritimes are continuing to improve, which underscores the fact that all real estate is local. Nobody knows this better than your local
REALTOR®, who remains your best source for information about the housing market where you currently live or might like to in the future."
Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity in January stood two per cent below levels reported in the same month last year,
marking the first year-over-year decline since April 2014.
"Comparing sales activity for January this year to sales one year earlier, there was a fairly even split between the number
of markets where sales were up versus the number of markets where sales were down," said Gregory Klump, CREA's
Chief Economist. "The decline in national sales largely reflects weakened activity in Calgary and Edmonton. If these two
markets are removed from national totals, combined sales activity remained 1.9 per cent above year-ago levels."
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