Canada house prices cool in July but sales inch up
Canada’s residential real estate markets inched higher in July from June, while prices dropped as sales slowed in the country’s priciest markets, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday.
Existing home sales in major markets rose 0.1% to 27,889 units from the previous month, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association, which represents more than 94,000 real estate dealers.
On a year-over-year basis, resales were down 10.9%, with last July being the strongest on record. The Canadian Real Estate Association said major market home sales in July 2008 were the third highest ever for the month.
Average house prices fell 3.6% to $327,020 from the year before, mainly due to fewer sales compared with a year earlier in the four most expensive major markets — Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia; Calgary, Alberta; and Toronto.
Despite July’s price drop, the Canadian Real Estate Association said the market is not set for a U.S.-style housing slump.
“Based on what happened in the first half of the year, the Canadian Real Estate Association’s market analysis shows a record (high) national average residential… price by the end of 2008, but with a much more modest increase than was recorded in 2007,” said Calvin Lindberg, the Canadian Real Estate Association president.
Average home prices rose 10.8% last year, the biggest yearly increase in 18 years.
Millan Mulraine, economics strategist at TD Securities, said the report was “somewhat disturbing” as cooling of home prices picked up in July.
“However, since the declines were mostly in the Western cities, where prices were not too long ago appreciating at a double-digit pace, we remain confident that the extent of the slowdown nationally will remain measured.”
The number of new listings in the country’s major markets rose 0.4% in July to 50,782 units. On a seasonally adjusted basis, new listings were up 11.4%.
Mulraine said that suggests the shift away from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market continued in July.
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