Canadian market sees small boost in home sales from June rate cut

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The first cut in interest rates by the Bank of Canada in four years wasn’t the deepest, but it did help boost real estate resales in aggregate across Canada in June.

A recent RBC Economics report found the 25-basis-point cut likely played a hand in resales climbing nationally by 3.7 per cent from May.

That said, the annualized, seasonally adjusted sales for Canada in June was still below pre-pandemic levels by nine per cent. Month-over-month sales grew in most major cities, with Ottawa seeing the largest jump at more than 10 per cent. Vancouver saw the next largest move at more than eight per cent. Yet both cities’ sales figures for the month were still below last June’s sales.

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For example, Vancouver sales in June were down more than 19 per cent while Ottawa sales fell two per cent. New listings also rose nationally, increasingly 1.5 per cent month over month, generally a sign of more people entering the market, the report noted. Listings were also up year over year by nearly three per cent.

Calgary and Edmonton were outliers among major markets seeing new listings decline 2.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively, year over year.

The MLS Home Price Index also gained modestly in June relative to May at 0.1 per cent. Year over year, the index was down about 3 per cent.

Again, Edmonton and Calgary bucked the trend. Calgary prices grew nearly nine per cent while Edmonton prices rose about seven per cent year over year. The two cities lead major centres on this metric, though Vancouver’s price index also gained 0.5 per cent, while Montreal prices rose nearly five per cent.

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