The Canadian Real Estate Association has downgraded its forecast for home sales activity in 2026, while the number of homes across the country sold in March fell 2.3 per cent from a year earlier.
CREA is now expecting a total of 474,972 residential properties to be sold throughout the year, which would be one per cent more than 2025, down from its previous forecast in January of 5.1 per cent growth year-over-year.
The national average home price is forecast to rise 1.5 per cent on an annual basis to $688,955 in 2026, which would be around $10,000 lower than predicted in January.
In March, the national average sale price fell 0.8 per cent compared with a year earlier to $673,084.
CREA’s own home price index, which aims to represent the sale of typical homes, edged 0.4 per cent lower between February and March, but dropped 4.7 per cent on a year-over-year basis.
The association says national home sales were virtually unchanged on a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, as rising global economic uncertainty, along with a jump in fixed mortgage rates tied to incoming higher inflation, “piled on to an already shaky economic start to the year.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2026.
