Canada’s national housing market showed some signs of life in May, compared to April’s numbers, with the first month-over-month gain in sales since November 2024. According to a report released Monday by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) the increase was driven by activity in Calgary, Ottawa and the Greater Toronto Area, “May 2025 not only saw home sales move higher at the national level for the first time in more than six months, but prices at the national level also stopped falling,” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s senior economist. “It’s only one month of data, and one car doesn’t make a parade, but there is a sense that maybe the expected turnaround in housing activity this year was just delayed for a few months by the initial tariff chaos and uncertainty.” National home sales increased 3.6% in May from April, however, sales were down 4.3% from May 2024. Also on the increase in May from April were new listings, said Cathcart. “New supply rose by 3.1% month-over-month in May. Given a similar increase in sales activity, the national sales-to-new listings ratio was 47%, almost unchanged from 46.8% in April,” he said. “The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.9%, with readings between 45% and 65% generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions.” .There were 201,880 properties listed for sale at the end of May, up 13.2% from a year earlier but remaining about 5% below the long-term average of around 211,500 listings for the month, said Valérie Paquin, CREA chair. “May saw an increased number of new listings hitting the market early in the month, followed by a higher number of transactions in the second half of the month, so overall more sellers and buyers compared to April,” said Paquin. “It seems like this may carry over into June as well.” There were 4.9 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of May, near the long-term average of five months of inventory, said Cathcart. “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,” he said. “The national average sales price was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis, while the national composite MLS home price Index declined just 0.2% from April to May 2025,” added Cathcart. “The pause follows on the heels of three straight month-over-month declines of closer to 1%. The non-seasonally adjusted national composite MLS home price index was down 3.5% compared to May 2024.”
