Housing market slowdown continues with sales and average prices well down from last year | CBC News

New numbers from the Canadian Real Estate Association confirm what buyers, sellers and owners have known for a while: the housing market is in a funk.

The group that represents more than 155,000 Realtors across the country said in a release Friday that sales for September were down by more than 30 per cent compared to the same period a year ago.

Prices are down on an annual basis, too, with the average selling price of a home listed on the MLS system going for $640,479. That’s down by 6.6 per cent compared to a year ago, and down by more than 21 per cent from the all-time high of $816,720 reached in February.

That was before the Bank of Canada began its aggressive campaign of rate hikes to rein in runaway inflation. The central bank has moved its benchmark lending rate up by more than three percentage points in the past six months, pushing rates on variable rate loans above five and even six per cent.

That’s poured cold water on the once red-hot housing market.

“The important thing to remember is we’re still in the middle of a period of rapid adjustment, with buyers and sellers trying to feel each other out while a lot of people have had to take their home search plans back to the drawing board,” CREA’s chief economist Shaun Cathcart said in a release. 

“As such, resale markets may remain on the quiet side for some time yet, with the flipside of that coin being even more pressure on rental markets.”