The average price of homes sold in Canada reached a new record in March after a year of pent-up demand.
According to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), home prices rose 5.2% in the month of March alone. Since March 2020, home prices have skyrocketed by 31.6%.
Even as more supply became available in March, the average price of a home in Canada rose to a record $716,828.
Throughout the past year, demand for housing remained high as Canadians moved away from coronavirus hotspots and expect to continue remote work into the future. Demand has also been encouraged by low interest rates.
In a statement, CERA Chair Cliff Stevenson said there are simply too many people looking to buy homes, even as supply has increased 25% in the past two months.
“Seeing how many homes were bought and sold in March 2021, one could be forgiven for thinking the market just continues to strengthen, and maybe to some extent it is,” he said.
“The real issue is not strength in housing markets but imbalance. That demand has been around for months, but with the shortages in supply we have across so much of Canada, a lot of that demand has been pressuring prices.”
Stevenson believes the rising prices will soon lead to an increase in sellers, which CREA hopes will lead to a stabilization in home prices.
Even before the housing market boom, many young and lower-income Canadians were pessimistic about their ability to buy a home. A 2019 poll found that almost half of millennials did not believe they could ever afford a home.
