Canada Existing Homes Sales Jump in May At Fastest Pace in Nearly Two Years

By Paul Vieira

OTTAWA--Canadian existing-home sales rose in May at the fastest pace since the fall of 2024, or before President Trump won a second term and imposed biting tariffs on some of Canada's key manufacturing sectors.

Real-estate brokers are growing confident that May's jump marks the start of a rebound after an extended slump in Canadian real estate. Sales and listings are either down or flat from a year ago, and benchmark house prices have declined for 16 straight months.

The Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday that existing home sales on a seasonally-adjusted basis rose 5.5% in May from the prior month, adding this was the first month in 2026 to demonstrate a meaningful increase in demand. On an unadjusted basis, sales fell 5.1% from a year ago. The 5.5% increase is the largest since October, 2024.

"Under the surface conditions have been improving for some time," said Shaun Cathcart, economist at the real-estate group. He said expectations among sellers and buyers are becoming aligned, citing a tightening sale-to-list price ratio and shorter periods between listing and sale dates.

The association's data indicated that benchmark house prices, calculated in a similar fashion to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, fell 0.1% from the prior month and nearly 4% from a year ago. Overall, house prices are down more than 20% from their peak in early 2022, or before the Bank of Canada went on an aggressive rate-hiking period to tame inflation.

Garry Bhaura, a real-estate broker in the Toronto suburb of Brampton, Ontario and chairman of the real-estate association, said the May data points to a pickup in activity during the historically busy spring season. He said he's hoping that buyers and sellers who have remained on the sidelines will change their minds given a pickup in sales activity.

The Canadian residential real-estate market, once a powerful engine of growth, has stalled. Analysts attribute the slowdown to higher mortgage rates, a sharp retreat in population growth, and weak underlying conditions that have been exacerbated by U.S. trade policy.

Statistics Canada data indicate that investment in Canadian residential structures fell 7.9% annualized in the first quarter, following a 9.4% drop in the final three months of 2025. On a 12-month basis, residential investment fell 3.3% in the first quarter.

The Bank of Canada anticipates that economic growth will resume in the second quarter, following two straight periods of contraction. Part of its optimism is tied to increased stability in housing activity.

Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com

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June 16, 2026 05:14 ET (09:14 GMT)