Sales Of Existing Canadian Homes Continue To Rebound In May 2009

This article was written by the Canadian Press June 15, 2009.

Resales of existing Canadian homes showed continuing improvements in in May, with both the number of transactions and the national average price on the rise, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

There were 49,521 existing homes sold in May, less than one per cent below the comparable month of 2008. The national average sale price in May hit the highest monthly level on record, at $319,757, which was up four-tenths of a percentage point from the previous record in May 2008.

The real-estate association said the dollar value of sales through its members reached $11.4 billion in May, up 10 per cent from the previous month and more than 50 per cent above the low of $7.5 billion in January. The association said the the rebound in activity was led in some of the most expensive local markets in Canada and that had the effect up pushing the national average price upward. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of sales in May was eight per cent above April’s and 43 per cent above the low point in January.

Although the number of resales has been rising, fewer properties have been put on the market through the Multiple Listing Service run by CREA members. New listings fell to a seasonally adjusted 65,070 units in May, 19 per cent below the peak reached a year earlier and the lowest since December 2005. “Inventory levels are still high in many markets, but fewer new listings and rising sales activity suggests that the selection of homes available for sale may shrink as the year progresses. The supply of homes up for sale needs to be drawn down further before average price increases become more widespread among local markets,” said CREA economyist Gregory Klump.