Canadian Housing Demand and Prices Slide Further in March
Monthly Housing Market Report
NATIONAL RESIDENTIAL STATISTICS
Ottawa, ON April 15, 2025 – Canadian home sales fell on a month-over-month basis once again in March 2025, as rising tariff turmoil and uncertainty is keeping home buyers on the sidelines.
Sales activity recorded over Canadian MLS® Systems sank 4.8% month-over-month in March 2025. Along with declines in each of the three previous months, national home sales are now down 20% from their recent high recorded last November. (Chart A)
“Up until this point, declining home sales have mostly been about tariff uncertainty. Going forward, the Canadian housing space will also have to contend with the actual economic fallout. In short order we’ve gone from a slam dunk rebound year to treading water at best,” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s Senior Economist.
While the largest of these declines have been seen in Ontario and British Columbia, sales are down over the last few months in all but a handful of small markets across the country.
On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the overall Canadian sales total for March 2025 fell 9.3% year-over-year and was the lowest for that month since 2009.
March Highlights:
National home sales fell 4.8% month-over-month.
Actual (not seasonally adjusted) monthly activity came in 9.3% below March 2024.
The number of newly listed properties moved 3% higher on a month-over-month basis.
The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) declined 1% month-over-month and was down 2.1% on a year-over-year basis.
The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average sale price was down 3.7% on a year-over-year basis.
Chart A
New supply moved up by 3% month-over-month in March. Combined with the decrease in sales, the national sales-to-new listings ratio fell to 45.9% compared to 49.7% in February. The March level for this measure of market balance is the lowest since February 2009. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.9%, with readings between 45% and 65% generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions.
There were 165,800 properties listed for sale on all Canadian MLS® Systems at the end of March 2025, up 18.3% from a year earlier but still below the long-term average (around 174,000 listings) for this time of the year.
“While the trend of falling monthly sales has been observed across Canada over the last few months, there are still many regions where sales are high, inventory is near record lows, and prices are rising,” said Valérie Paquin, newly installed Chair of CREA’s 2025-2026 Board of Directors. “There are also parts of the country with historically low sales and the highest inventory levels in a decade or more. If you’re looking to buy or sell a property in 2025, you’ll need to understand the market where you are, so contact a REALTOR® in your area today.”
There were 5.1 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of March 2025, the highest level since the early months of the pandemic. The long-term average for this measure is five months of inventory. Based on one standard deviation above and below that long-term average, a seller’s market would be below 3.6 months and a buyer’s market would be above 6.4 months.
The National Composite MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) declined by 1% from February to March 2025, marking the largest month-over-month decrease since November 2023. (Chart B)
Chart B
The renewed softening in prices was most notable in British Columbia and Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe. Across much of the Prairies, Quebec, and the East Coast, prices have continued to push higher.
The non-seasonally adjusted National Composite MLS® HPI was down 2.1% compared to March 2024.
The non-seasonally adjusted national average home price was $678,331 in March 2025, down 3.7% from March 2024.
The next CREA statistics package will be published on Thursday, May 15, 2025.
