CREA cuts 2025 forecast again, but points to home sales rebound

For the second time this year, the Canadian Real Estate Association has downgraded its forecast for home sales in 2025, even as it reported the number of homes changing hands across the country in June rose 3.5% compared with a year ago.

The association says Canadian home sales last month also increased 2.8% compared with May on a seasonally adjusted basis.

In its outlook, CREA now expects a total of 469,503 residential properties to be sold in 2025 — a 3% decline from 2024. In April, the association had forecast that home sales would remain essentially unchanged from last year, which itself marked a steep cut from its January forecast of an 8.6% year-over-year increase.

The national average home price is forecast to fall 1.7% on an annual basis to $677,368 in 2025 — about $10,000 lower than predicted in April.

CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that despite a “chaotic start to the year,” the latest data suggest the housing market rebound originally forecast for this year — before it was upended by the Canada–U.S. trade war — may have “only been delayed by a few months.”

In June, the national average sale price fell 1.3% compared with a year earlier, to $691,643.

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press

Sammy Hudes is a reporter with The Canadian Press, a national news agency headquartered in Toronto and founded in 1917.