Canada sees minimal gains in home prices last month

Teranet revealed on Tuesday that home prices had increased in most parts of Canada, although these gains were small compared to those recorded over the same period in past years.

As reported by Reuters, Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index saw a 0.8% growth in prices on a monthly basis, as prices rose in 10 of the 11 markets polled for the months of May and June. One of the exceptions was Calgary, which remained flat.

Looking closely though, it can be observed that while the index, which measures non-seasonally adjusted sales, had recorded four consecutive increases every month, the seasonally adjusted index has seen four consecutive decreases over the same period.

Teranet provided an explanation in its report, saying that “[the inconsistency] means that the recent monthly rises in the published index reflected only seasonal pressures instead of an underlying trend.”

“Price gains continued to decline on an annual basis, up 1.8% from July 2017, the smallest 12-month increase since 2013 and the 13th consecutive monthly slowdown from last June’s record 12-month gain of 14.2%,” Reuters expounded.

Dissecting the market movements for every city, the report indicated that prices in Toronto grew 0.8% on a monthly basis. This implied that the values in Canada’s largest city are beginning to stabilize after tighter mortgage rules and provincial government directives took a toll on its market.

According to Teranet, the Toronto index has declined 4.0% from its peak in July 2017.

Vancouver prices, meanwhile, hit a new high, up 0.4% in the month. However, recent increases have been smaller than in the past and weakening in sales have been observed. In 2017, Vancouver prices were up 10.6%.

Canada’s housing market has undergone cooling after the central bank’s four interest rate hikes since July 2017. The condo markets in both Toronto and Vancouver, on the other hand, stayed robust.

 

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