The organization’s benchmark home price index — a metric designed to create an “apples-to-apples” comparison of typical home sales over time — also posted a decline of 0.6 per cent month-over-month, the first such decline since April 2020, CREA noted.
Sales volumes dropped precipitously as well, falling 12.6 per cent month-over-month and 25.7 per cent since a record April last year. While the decline was largely led by the Greater Toronto Area market, sales fell across 80 per cent of local markets.in many parts of Canada have cooled off pretty sharply over the last two months, in line with a jump in interest rates and buyer fatigue,” CREA chair Jill Oudil said in a press release.
While prices slipped from March to April, the association noted that the average price was still up more than seven per cent over the same month last year and the benchmark price was still up 23.8 per cent year-over-year. CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart said this month’s data was less a reflection on the moves the Bank of Canada has already made and more about the sentiment around how far the central bank is prepared to go to tamp down inflation.