National Real Estate Association blames Ontario’s ice storm for decline in housing sales in January
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The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is attributing Old Man Winter as a factor in good housing sales during the month of January.
In new data released on Wednesday, CREA says that on a national basis, housing sales were down 5.8 percent month-on-month in January.
Shawn Cathcart, the organization’s senior economist, told CBC News that January’s slow pace was particularly acute in parts of Ontario, a province that saw some of the worst winter weather that month.
“TeaThe numbers were lower than we thought, but it’s all concentrated in central and southwestern OntarioRight in the path of that storm that came through around the third week of January,” Cathcart said in an interview.
The impact on housing transactions was not particularly surprising, given many”At one point they could not reach the end of their route for a week, Cathcart said.
Cathcart said CREA sees no reason To change your 2026 forecast Simply because January was a mediocre month.
“As long as we don’t get another two-foot snowstorm in the most populous part of Canada, our forecast is that things will improve,” Cathcart said.
CREA said Canada had about 4.9 months of housing inventory available for sale at the end of January, which is roughly in line with the long-term average of five months of inventory.
This is the metric that CREA uses to measure market balance, where a lower ratio would indicate a sellers’ market and a higher ratio would indicate a buyers’ market.
No sign of rate cut
Cathcart said some buyers may be waiting for lower interest rates to take effect, but he said there is no indication that rates are going to change.
Bank of Canada reduced its key interest rate to 2.25 percent at the end of Octoberbut it is It has not been adjusted since.
The Canadian Real Estate Association is predicting a modest rebound in the housing market this year after a sluggish 2025. But while home prices are falling in big cities like Toronto and Vancouver, they are rising in smaller cities like Regina and Quebec City.
Cathcart said first-time buyers may face challenges entering the market, given the combination of prices they face and the mortgage rates available.
“AAffordability still remains a challenge, Cathcart said.
The non-seasonally adjusted national average price of a home – according to the national composite MLS Home Price Index (HPI) used by CREA – was $652,941 in January, which the association said was down 2.6 percent from a year earlier.
Its overall forecast for 2026 projects a modest growth of 2.8 percent for the same metric.
CREA says the MLS HPI uses over 15 years of data and “sophisticated statistical models to define a ‘typical’ home based on the characteristics of homes purchased and sold.” These households are then tracked across neighborhoods and different housing types.
Regionally, CREA said prices in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are down year over year, “offsetting gains in other provinces.”
