Canada’s major market home sales in February via the Multiple Listing Service totaled 24,368 units on a seasonally adjusted basis, up 1.4 percent from January, according to The Canadian Real Estate Association.
Seasonally adjusted new listings amounted to 38,885 units, up 4 from January.
While listings are trending higher, the housing market nonetheless remains historically tight.
Tight market conditions combined with solid demand for higher priced homes caused the major market MLS residential average price to rise 10.5 percent year-over-year to $233,921.
“Recent interest-rate declines and recent full-time job growth are continuing to fuel strong housing demand,” said Pierre Beauchamp, CREA’s chief executive officer.
“According to the Conference Board of Canada, consumer confidence remains at a high level,” he added. “Although they indicated that consumers are becoming slightly more cautious, nearly 60 percent of their survey respondents said that now is a good time to make a big-ticket purchase.”
“With the Bank of Canada recently having cut its trend-setting Bank rate another quarter of a percentage point and with employment and sentiment about making major purchases at high levels, the housing market will no doubt continue to flex its muscles during the important spring buying season,” Beauchamp said.
The Canadian Real Estate Association represents the interests of more than 69,000 licensed and registered real estate practitioners in 103 local real estate boards, 10 provincial associations and one territorial association.
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