Canadian Home Sales Rise for First Time in Six Months

National homes sales were up in May, marking the first month-over-month gain in activity since last November.

The number of sales recorded over Canadian MLS systems climbed 3.6 per cent from April.

The increase was led by the Greater Toronto Area, Calgary and Ottawa.

“May not only saw home sales move higher at the national level for the first time in more than six months, but prices also stopped falling,” says Shaun Cathcart, senior economist with the Canadian Real Estate Association. “It’s only one month of data, and one car doesn’t make a parade, but there is a sense that maybe the expected turnaround in housing activity this year was just delayed for a few months by the initial tariff chaos and uncertainty.”

While sales rose, the number of newly listed properties did too. There were 201,880 properties active listings at the end of May, up 3.1 per cent from April.

Year-over-year, active listings were up 13.2 per cent. However, they were still about five per cent below the long-term average of 211,500 listings for the month.

Given the similar increase in sales activity, the national sales-to-new listings ratio was 47 per cent, almost unchanged from 46.8 per cent in April. The long-term average is 54.9 per cent, with readings between 45-65 per cent generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions.

The MLS home price index was almost unchanged from April, down just 0.2 per cent. On a year-over-year basis, prices have fallen 3.5 per cent.

Of course, pricing activity varied per province, with most continuing to see modest annual growth. Quebec and the East Coast have seen prices rising for the last three years and that’s still evident. In the Prairies, prices were higher in most places, except Calgary, whose more expensive market topped out over the last year. British Columbia saw prices fall, especially in the Lower Mainland. Ontario has been the hardest hit market since the beginning of 2025, but prices stopped falling and even ticked up in some places like the Greater Golden Horseshoe area and southern Ontario.