Homebuyers stayed on the sidelines in February 2025, leading to a significant drop in home sales across the country, according to the latest market report from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). With the ongoing trade war between Canada and the United States, market activity slowed to its lowest level in over a year.<\/p>\n
Sales activity fell 9.8% compared to January, marking the largest single-month decline since May 2022 and the lowest absolute number of home sales recorded since November 2023. The slowdown wasn\u2019t limited to just a few areas \u2014 sales declined in about three-quarters of all local markets, with the most pronounced drop happening in the Greater Toronto Area and the surrounding Greater Golden Horseshoe region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moment tariffs were first announced on January 20, a gap opened between home sales recorded this year and last. This trend continued to widen throughout February, leading to a significant, but hardly surprising, drop in monthly activity,\u201d said Shaun Cathcart, CREA\u2019s Senior Economist, in the monthly report. \u201cThis is already being reflected in renewed price softness, particularly in Ontario\u2019s Greater Golden Horseshoe region.\u201d<\/p>\n
While home sales dropped, new listings also declined at a similar pace. As a result, the national sales-to-new listings ratio edged up slightly to 49.9%, compared to 48.3% in January. Historically, a balanced market sits between 45% and 65%.<\/p>\n
There were 146,250 properties listed on MLS\u00ae Systems at the end of February, marking a 13.1% increase from a year earlier. However, this number is still well below the long-term average for this time of year, which typically sits around 174,000 listings. Inventory levels also climbed, reaching 4.7 months of available homes on a national basis, up from 4.1 months in January. The long-term average for inventory is five months, suggesting the market is slowly shifting toward more choice for buyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe uncertainty of the last few weeks seems to be causing some buyers to think twice about big financial decisions right now,\u201d said James Mabey, CREA\u2019s Chair. \u201cFor others, a softer pricing environment and now lower interest rates will be a buying opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The National Composite MLS\u00ae Home Price Index (HPI) fell 0.8% from January to February. The softening in prices was particularly evident in Ontario\u2019s Greater Golden Horseshoe region, where the decline was more pronounced. On an annual basis, the non-seasonally adjusted National Composite MLS\u00ae HPI was down 1% compared to February 2024.<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
Communications manager, Royal LePage<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Homebuyers stayed on the sidelines in February 2025, leading to a significant drop in home sales across the country, according to the latest market report from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). With the ongoing trade war between Canada and the United States, market activity slowed to its lowest level in over a year. Home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":724,"featured_media":1916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nouvelles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1917,"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/1917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucynefarand.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}