Auction Markets Steady As Listings Surge
Gloomy house value forecasts and a flood of stock can’t dampen the market.
Gloomy house value forecasts and a flood of stock can’t dampen the market.
National auction markets have continued to produce healthy results despite a record number of listings for this time of the year.
The national auction market posted a clearance rate of 81.5% at the weekend — similar to the 81.6% reported over the previous weekend but lower than the 84.5% recorded over the same weekend last year.
National auction numbers were again significantly higher at the weekend with 2341 reported listed compared to the previous weekend’s 1977, and well above the 1787 reported over the same weekend last year.
In Sydney, the market recorded more strong results despite record-level listings for February with the NSW capital recording 878 homes listed for auction — up on the previous weekend’s 784 and higher than the 624 auctioned over the same weekend of 2021.
Sydney recorded a clearance rate of 78.1% at the weekend – lower than the 79.5% over the previous weekend and well below the 87.3% recorded over the same weekend last year.
The median price for a house sold at auction at the weekend in Sydney was $1,750,000 — lower than the $1,835,000 reported over the previous weekend but 3.4% higher than this weekend last year.
Like its northern counterpart, Melbourne produced strong results despite another surge in listings.
The Victorian capital reported a clearance rate of 75.5% on Saturday — higher than last weekend’s 72.3% but below the 79.6% recorded over the same weekend last year.
A total of 1129 homes were reported listed for auction at the weekend — higher than last weekend’s 888 and the 1004 recorded over the same weekend last year.
Melbourne recorded a median price of $1,165,000 for houses sold at auction at the weekend which was higher than last weekend’s $1,090,000 and 15.9% higher than the $1,005,000 recorded over the same weekend last year.
Data powered by Dr Andrew Wilson, My Housing Market.
Early indications from several big regional real-estate boards suggest March was overall another down month.
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Early indications from several big regional real-estate boards suggest March was overall another down month.
OTTAWA–The nascent recovery in Canada’s housing market has become a casualty of the trade dispute with the U.S.
The latest national home-resale data are due out Tuesday, but early indications from several big regional real-estate boards suggest March was overall another down month as many prospective buyers exercised caution.
The recent weakness in home sales has dimmed the previously brighter outlook for the property market coming into 2025, when buyers were encouraged by the Bank of Canada’s aggressive interest-rate cuts.
“The chills the U.S. trade war has sent through participants in the housing market are getting frostier,” said Robert Hogue , assistant chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada.
Hogue said resales are down materially in a number of markets two months running, and home prices in several markets are coming under pressure as inventories rise. And although Canada was spared additional levies when President Trump unveiled so-called reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries earlier this month, no meaningful rebound is likely so long as trade uncertainty lingers, he said.
Home buyers in Toronto, Canada’s most populous city and the country’s financial hub, aren’t turning up for the usual spring pickup in property-market activity.
Sales in the Greater Toronto Area slumped 23.1% in March from a year earlier, as new listings for the region jumped close to 29%, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board. That marked the worst month of resales since 1998.
The board’s chief information officer, Jason Mercer , said many potential home buyers were likely taking a wait-and-see approach given the economic worries as well as a pending federal election. “Homebuyers need to feel their employment situation is solid before committing to monthly mortgage payments over the long term,” he said, adding that ownership has become more affordable and prices in the area fell about 3.8% year on year in March.
Uncertainty is also weighing on the housing market in Calgary, the biggest city in oil-rich Alberta. The city’s real-estate board said realtors reported a 19% drop in sales of existing homes from last year, with a similar trend of improving supply and a sharp increase in the average number of days that homes were on the market.
On the West Coast, home sales registered in the metro Vancouver area of British Columbia were the lowest for March since 2019, falling 13.4% on a year earlier and coming in close to 37% below the 10-year seasonal average, while active listings continued to rise.
There are some areas of resilience. The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers said total sales in the province were up 9% year on year in March. Still, RBC’s Hogue estimated Montreal sales in March were down about 15% from December seasonally adjusted, effectively rolling back the advance since the end of last summer.
The most recent national data for the country, from the Canadian Real Estate Association, showed resales dropped 9.8% month over month in February, when homebuyers may also have been put off by harsh winter storms in parts of the country. That marked the sharpest fall since May 2022 and brought the level of sales to their lowest level since November 2023, snapping signs that activity had been picking up in recent months.
Rishi Sondhi , an economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, in a recent report estimated the country was tracking toward a double-digit quarterly decline in Canadian home sales and a mid-single-digit drop in Canadian average home prices for the first three months of 2025. That is much weaker than a pre-Trump inauguration forecast made in December that projected a loosening in federal mortgage rules, lower interest rates and continued economic growth would fuel a modest gain in sales and prices.
Central-bank officials are set to decide Wednesday on monetary policy, but they have signaled a cautious approach to rates as they balance the prospect of tariffs stoking price pressures against the likelihood that they will dampen demand and weigh on the economy. That could mean the Bank of Canada will pause after seven straight cuts to its policy rate.
Housing is a hot topic for party leaders campaigning ahead of the April 28 election, with both the incumbent Liberal Party and opposition Conservatives proposing tax cuts and incentives to encourage buyers and builders.
The outlook for new homes has also dimmed with the tariff threat. The value of residential-building permits issued in February fell 2.9% from a month prior, adding to a retreat in January that took back some of the surge in intentions in the final month of last year, Statistics Canada data last week showed.
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