Real Estate Statistics in Canada

After a few years of steady price increases, property prices in many areas of Canada hit a record high in 2022. However, how much prices have risen or fallen has varied across Canada, and even within provinces and territories.

In this article, we will look at the real estate statistics across Canada. We will also look at the current trends on the housing market and what is predicted to happen to the price of real estate in Canada.

Real Estate Statistics for Canadians

• The average house price in Canada was 7% higher in June 2023 compared to June 2022.
• Newfoundland & Labrador has the cheapest average house price, while British Columbia is the most expensive province.
• Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia have the most expensive real estate markets.
• The cities of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec; Saguenay, Quebec; and Saint John, New Brunswick, have some of the cheapest real estate in Canada.
• New Brunswick saw the biggest rise in property prices between June 2022 and June 2023 at 7%. Prince Edward Island saw the biggest drop with house prices down by 9% compared to the previous year.
• The number of houses sold fell from 48,176 in June 2022 to 40,449  in June 2023. 
• House prices were up by 1% from May 2023 to June 2023. 

Real Estate Terms

Before we get into the statistics, there are some terms we will refer throughout the article, which some people might not be familiar with. These terms are explained below.

Median Price: This is literally the price in the middle when all the property sales from a given time period have been arranged from the lowest to the highest. Half of the properties during that time period will have sold for less and the other half for more.

Average Price: We get the average price by adding together all the sales and then dividing the number by the total amount of sales. The average price is not always the most accurate measure since, for example, just one or two very expensive house sales will raise the average price.

Benchmark Price: This can be considered a typical sale price for a type of property in an area because the price is based on criteria that are commonly found in similar properties within the area. Estate agents use benchmark price when predicting a sales price for a property.

MLS: An abbreviation for the Multiple Listings Service. It is a database that lists properties for sale in a given area and is used by real-estate agents to find properties for potential buyers and to guide purchase offer negotiations. It is recognized as the most reliable and comprehensive data on real estate in Canada.

HPI: The Home Price Index is provided by the MLS and provides a clearer picture of market trends than median or average prices. It takes into account the type of homes sold and measures the rate of house price changes over time.

The average house price in Canada

The house prices in Canada reached an all-time high in February 2022 when the average home price was $816,720. Based on the data from WOWA Canada, the prices have since fallen and in June 2023, the average price was down by almost $60,000 to $760,600. However, WOWA reports that this is a 1% increase in the benchmark price in a month.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), house prices rose by 1.5% and the number of listings rose 5.9% month-over-month.

However, the national average house price is often skewed because of the large and expensive markets in places such as the Greater Toronto Area and Greater Vancouver, which also have the most active markets in Canada. If those two areas are taken out of the equation, the national average price is more than $110,000 lower.

What are the average house prices across the different provinces and territories?

The average price varies greatly between across Canada from under £300,000 in the cheapest provinces to close to a million dollars in the most expensive provinces.

We have listed the average prices in the Canadian provinces and territories in the table below. Note that there is no data for Nunavut. However, a report by CBC News from January 2022 shows that prices in Iqaluit, the territory’s capital rose sharply during 2021.

The cities with the most expensive real estate

Toronto, the capital of Ontario, recently surpassed Vancouver, British Columbia for the first time in a couple of decades as the city with the highest average house price. In both cities, the average house price now tops one million dollars with around $100,000 difference between the two cities. In June 2023, the average house price was $1,182,120 in Toronto and $1,271,728 in Vancouver. Hamilton in Ontario and Victoria in British Columbia, also have average house prices avering around the one million mark.

What has been pushing the prices up in Canada until the last few months when the prices began to fall in most provinces and territories? The main reason has been the lack of supply to meet the growing demand. Many municipalities are trying to address this by building new homes to meet the needs of the residents and to stem the exponential price increases in some areas.

The Cities with the cheapest real estate

It is still possible to find cheaper real estate in Canada if you are willing to look outside the most popular areas. Listings from Point2Homes show that some of the most affordable property markets in Canada are in Saint John, New Brunswick, Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, and Saguenay, Quebec.

In Trois-Rivieres, an average home will cost only $169,100, with detached homes selling on average for $213,950. Saguenay is a little more expensive, with its $213,000 average house price and $231,910 for an average detached home.

According to a report by CREA, in Saint John, the average price of homes sold in June 2023 was $291,400, which is down 3% from the previous June. However, the benchmark price for single-family homes also fell by 3% and was $292,800.

A closer look at real estate statistics in different parts of Canada

Ontario

In Ontario, the average home price fell by 2% from May 2023 to June 2023 but were up by 3% since June 2023.  The housing market in the Greater Toronto Area slowed down. However, sales were up by 16% compared to previous June.

In 2022, the biggest month-to-month house price increases in Ontario were in Brampton at 15% and Hamilton at 14%. Ottawa’s price increases were below the average for the province with prices up 7.5% from the previous year.

Maritime Provinces

The Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island continued to outperform the rest of the country with the biggest increases in benchmark and average prices.

The year-on-year price in New Brunswick rose by 7% to $316,231. Prince Edward Island saw house prices fall by 9% compared to the previous June, with the average price in June 2023 at $380,113.

Newfoundland & Labrador

The prices in Newfoundland & Labrador also fell between june 2022 and June 2023. In a year, the benchmark price fell by 5% in the province to $290,018 in June 2023. However, the province saw a 6.64% increase between May and June.

The Prairie Provinces

The three Prairie Provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have seen lower price increases than the rest of the country. After prices increasing in 2022, they have fallen by 4% between June 2022 and June 2023. In Saskatchewan, the increase from June to June was 1% and the monthly growth rate was 0.91%.

Alberta’s house prices increasedby 4% year-on-year. The average house price in Alberta in June 2023 was $468,519. The two major cities in Alberta saw very different price increases. In Calgary the prices rose by 7% since the year before, whereas the prices in Edmonton have seen a 2% annual increase.

British Columbia

Even though many place in Ontario are edging closer to British Columbia prices, British Columbia is still the most expensive province. The year-on-year prices were up by 5% in June despite a 2.7% decline from this May to June.

Historically, the biggest increases within the province have been in Powell River where prices rose by 43% in a year from 2021 to 2022 and Vancouver Island with a 31% increase. 

Quebec

House prices in Quebec were down by 2% in a year and the average home price in June 2023 was $$475,100. The biggest city in the province Montreal saw the benchmark price fall by 4%.

The Territories

Both Yukon and the Northwest Territories have seen their average year-on-year house prices go up. Since May 2021, the prices were up by 8% in Yukon and 7% in the Northwest Territories. There is no data listed for Nunavut.

How many homes were sold in June 2023?

According to a report by Global news, home sales fell again in June 2022, but the rate was smaller than in April or May. There was a drop of 24% compared to June 2021 when 63,280 homes were sold across Canada. In June 2022, the number was 48,176. The number of houses sold fell again in June 2023 to 40,449. 

The Scotiabank said in its report about the housing market in June 2022, that the number of house sales fell 5.6% compared to May. The decline has been clear in most parts of Canada with sales falling in 26 out of 31 Scotiabank’s markets. 

The biggest falls were in the urban centres in Ontario, including Toronto, London, Ottawa, Barrie, Hamilton and Guelph. Urban centres in British Columbia such as Vancouver, Victoria and Okanagan-Mainline also saw a deep decline. Sales also went down in Edmonton and Calgary. The national level of sales is now close to pre-pandemic levels.

How many homes were listed for sale in June?

Part of the reason house prices fell again in June was the number of newly listed homes on the market. The number rose by 4.1% compared to May. According to CREA, the increase was largely influenced by a new supply of homes in Montreal. However, some areas, including the Greater Toronto Area and Greater Vancouver, saw small declines in the number of new listings in June.

Scotiabank reports listings increased in 75% of their local markets, which has shifted the market more towards a balanced or a buyers’ market rather than a sellers’ market. Two areas, Saint John in New Brunswick and St. John’s in Newfoundland & Labrador, still have sellers’ markets.

What is predicted to happen in the second half of  2023?

According to Norada, the prediction is that the housing market will start to recover later in 2023. The rate of recovery will gradually speed up in 2024 as the overall exonomy stabilises.

The current slow down in many parts of Canada down to different factors, including inflation and higher interest rates. As the economy becomes more stable, this will also reflect on the house prices and number of sales.