January home sales jump 22% from year ago

Home sales rose in an unseasonably warm January to mark a second month of rising activity and softening prices, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Wednesday.

January sales were up 3.7% from a month earlier after seasonal adjustments, and up 22% from a year ago when sales were particularly soft.

The increase added to the 8.7% seasonally adjusted jump in December activity from a month earlier.

The rise in sales is helping tighten market conditions, though areas with the highest sales gains are still seeing prices trend lower, said CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart in a press release.

“Taken together, these trends suggest a market that is starting to turn a corner but is still working through the weakness of the last two years.”

The sizable jump in January sales from a year earlier reflects how weak the market was in early 2023, when it had the worst start to almost any year in the past two decades. Sales last month were still about 9% below the 10-year average.

Sales gains in January from a month earlier were most notable in Ontario, which saw a seasonally adjusted 6.9 per cent gain, and B.C., where sales rose 4.5%.

The aggregate benchmark price, which aims to represent price changes of a typical home, was up 0.6% from a year earlier to $717,800.

However, the benchmark price fell 1.2% month-over-month.

Rising activity and soft prices is mostly an Ontario and B.C. story, said TD economist Rishi Sondhi in a note.

“While we had expected Canadian home sales to increase in the first quarter … they are on track to exceed our forecast by a considerable margin.”

Rising sales outpaced the number of newly listed properties, up 1.5% month-over-month, to create a more balanced market.

Sondhi said average home price growth is expected to continue in tighter markets, but that severe affordability deteriorations in some markets should limit runaway price growth.

BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic cautioned in a note that sales are generally weak in the winter months, so it won’t be until spring housing numbers start to appear that there will be a clear picture on the trend.

“We’ll really need to see how the numbers start to look in March and beyond,” said Kavcic.

“So far, there remain encouraging signs that the market has troughed alongside improved sentiment and some lower fixed mortgage rates — and there is pent-up demand on the sidelines.”