Shannon Marler
BROWSE
PARTNERSCREA Updates Resale Housing Market Forecast for 2025 and 2026
1/24/2025
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has updated its forecast for home sales activity and average home prices via the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) Systems of Canadian real estate boards and associations and expanded the outlook to include 2026.
CREA’s latest forecast is little changed from the fall 2024 outlook. The assumption remains that the combination of two and a half years of pent-up demand and lower borrowing costs, together with the usual burst of spring listings will lead to a rebound in market activity across the country in 2025. There was a good preview of what that might look like during the fourth quarter of 2024.
In addition to lower mortgage rates, the expectation the Bank of Canada may soon signal that interest rates are about as low as they are likely to go in this easing cycle could spur even more demand from those who have been waiting for the right time to lock in a fixed-rate mortgage.
This rebound in demand is expected to play out differently across Canada, with British Columbia and Ontario expected to see bigger rebounds on the sales side owing to how low sales are there currently, together with more plentiful inventories, and less scope for price gains in these already expensive parts of the country.
By contrast, increased demand is expected to play out more on the price side in Alberta and Saskatchewan where sales were already near record levels in 2024, inventories are currently near-20-year lows, and prices are still relatively more affordable.
Manitoba, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces are all expected to fall between these extremes, with both more sales and higher prices in 2025.
https://www.crea.ca/housing-market-stats/canadian-housing-market-stats/quarterly-forecasts/