Canada saw an unprecedented demand for real estate, with the lowest number of houses left for sale in the last quarter-century.
As per Bloomberg news, the country is left with just about 86,000 houses for sale at the end of Dec 2021, according to data from Canadian Real Estate Association. This was all left after buyers purchased 667,000 homes in 2021, a 20% growth of its previous year’s record.
With a shortage in supply, the benchmark prices of the home rose by 2.5% in December over its previous month and were up by a record 26.6%of the priors year.
According to Shaun Cathcart, senior economist with the Real Estate Board, Canada has fewer properties left for sale than at any point in time. “The housing affordability problem is expected to get worse in Canada before it gets better” as per the press release along with the data.
The national data followed the trend set by Vancouver and Toronto’s expensive real estate market earlier this month. The fall in the number of home listings has reinforced the views that rising prices result from national shortages. The spiraling cost of housings has gone out of reach of most working Canadians in big cities irrespective of whether they rent or buy.
The benchmark price of Canadian homes is now C$811,700(USD 648,000), prompting politicians to look for answers for the increasing housing crisis.
Real estate board Cathcart says policymakers have started saying the right things but now have to act and change Canadians’ course. An aggressive push is required nationally to address the housing problem and building more homes than ever before will only address the issue. A touch over the present status will not help.
With so few listings left across Canada, the pace of home sales is going down. The December transactions were roughly the same as November’s, though it was enough to register the second-highest sales in the year’s final month on record.
