After a relatively quiet start to the year, home sales across Canada in July continued a growing sales trend, increasing 3.8% from June, according to a report released Friday from the Canadian Real Estate Association, taking sales to an increase of 11.2% since March. The July increase in sales was again led by the Greater Toronto Area, where transactions, while still historically low, have rebounded a cumulative 35.5% since March. The slow start to the year has been attributed to the implementation of US tariffs, casting a dark cloud over buyer confidence, said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s senior economist, “With sales posting a fourth consecutive increase in July, and almost 4% at that, the long-anticipated post-inflation crisis pickup in housing seems to have finally arrived,” said Cathcart. “Looking ahead a little bit, it will be interesting to see how buyers react to the burst of new supply that typically shows up in the first half of September.” On a year-over-year basis sales increased 6.6% over July 2024. The increase in sales took a bite out of months of inventory in the country, dropping below the long-term average said Cathcart. .“There were 4.4 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of July 2025, dropping further below the long-term average of five months of inventory as sales continue to pick up,” he said. “Based on one standard deviation above and below that long-term average, a seller’s market would be below 3.6 months and a buyer’s market would be above 6.4 months.” “In total, there were 202,500 properties listed for sale on all Canadian MLS Systems at the end of July 2025, up 10.1% from a year earlier and in line with the long-term average for that time of the year,” added Cathcart. The national MLS Home Price Index benchmark was $780,000 in July, unchanged from June. The national average sales price was $680,000. Both the national benchmark and average prices are heavily influenced by the more expensive markets in the BC lower mainland and the Ontario GTA. The national sales-to-new listings ratio rose to 52%, up from 50.1% in June and 47.4% in May. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.9%, with readings roughly between 45% and 65% generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions. .“Activity continues to pick up through the transition from the spring to the summer market, which is the opposite of a normal year, but this has not been a normal year,” said CREA Chair, Valérie Paquin. “Typically, we see a burst of new listings right at the beginning of September to kick off the fall market, but it seems like buyers are increasingly returning to the market.” “Based on the extent to which prices fell off in the second half of 2024, look for year-over-year declines to continue to shrink in the months ahead.”
