Canadian housing turns seller to buyer’s market after five years
Province
OTTAWA — Canadian home prices continued to slide in January, falling at an annual pace of 2.4 per cent and continuing a retreat in value that started in February 2008, the Teranet-National Bank composite house-price index shows.
Price declines were sharpest in Calgary, down 8.2 per cent year-over-year, and Vancouver, off 4.2 per cent.
“This reading extends and deepens the home-price disinflation that began last February. It confirms that in early 2009, after more than five years of seller’s market conditions, Canadian housing as a whole was a buyer’s market,” the report said.
“January was also the fifth straight month in which the composite index was down from the month before, extending the first run of consecutive monthly declines since March 2007.”
The index, which analyzes six constituent city indexes, shows that national housing values peaked in August 2008 and have fallen 5.5 per cent on average since.
Along with measuring year-over-year price changes, this month’s survey has added comparisons of current prices versus their peak values, which occurred at different times in the cities involved.
Calgary prices, for instance, peaked in August 2007 and have fallen 11.4 per cent since, the largest decline of the cities monitored. Vancouver‘s declines have been second in order of magnitude, falling 8.3 per cent from their peak reached in June 2008.
Moving east, the declines begin to ease off. Toronto house values fell 1.4 per cent in January — the fifth straight month of declines — off 2.4 per cent year-over-year, and down 6.1 per cent from their peak reached in August 2008.
Prices in Montreal actually edged up in January, by 0.1 per cent, after three months of declines and are off only 0.4 per cent from their peak reached in September 2008. Year-over-year, prices are still ahead by 4.1 per cent.
In Ottawa, prices slipped 1.4 per cent in January — the third month of declines — and have fallen 3.6 per cent from their peak reached in October 2008. Year-over-year, however, prices are still ahead by 2.1 per cent.
In Halifax, prices edged down one per cent in January and are off 3.5 per cent from their peak reached in November 2008. Year-over-year, prices are still ahead 1.2 per cent.
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