New homes are constructed in Ottawa on Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. The Bank of Canada's next rate announcement is unlikely to spur much immediate movement in the national housing market, but economists say it may be just a matter of months until buyers come crawling back from the sidelines.
"I think it's a bit of a muddy backdrop there and maybe that might be restraining some of the activity," he said. “After two years of mostly quiet resale housing activity, there’s a feeling that things are about to pick up,” CREA chair Larry Cerqua said in a statement last month. "People have gotten comfortable ... and are used to making the payments at these higher rates. Buyers are starting to come back into the marketplace. Obviously there's talk of the rates starting to come down now and we're seeing multiple offers again on some properties."
"For me, I'm feeling now that we've seen this kind of lull, I think April is going to be a really tell-tale month for how the rest of the spring goes."