The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has updated its 2025 and 2026 forecasts for home sales activity and average home prices via the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and it points to a rebound from the current doom and gloom. In 2024, CREA forecast a recovery year in Canada’s resale housing markets, fueled by pent-up demand and lower interest rates. By mid-fall 2024 the rebound appeared to be underway. That forecast would have seen national home sales once again top the 500,000 mark in 2025, and the average price of those sales return to the $700,000 range.

By DESIBUZZCanada Staff

OTTAWA — The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has updated its 2025 and 2026 forecasts for home sales activity and average home prices via the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and it points to a rebound from the current doom and gloom. 

In 2024, CREA forecast a recovery year in Canada’s resale housing markets, fueled by pent-up demand and lower interest rates. By mid-fall 2024 the rebound appeared to be underway. That forecast would have seen national home sales once again top the 500,000 mark in 2025, and the average price of those sales return to the $700,000 range.

In early 2025, tariff chaos and economic uncertainty returned many home buyers back to the sidelines, taking particularly large bites out of activity in British Columbia and Ontario, while putting additional downward pressure on prices.

That said, since March 2025, home sales activity has been on a steady upward climb, suggesting the long-anticipated return of buyers into the market was likely only delayed and dampened, but not derailed.

The result is a somewhat lower forecast for 2025 than was expected a year ago, but with solid upward momentum heading into 2026, such that the 2025 forecast from one year ago is now what’s expected for 2026.

Some 473,093 residential properties are forecast to trade hands via Canadian MLS Systems in 2025, representing a 1.1% decline from 2024. The national dip is the result of forecast declines in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario slightly offsetting gains elsewhere.

The national average home price is forecast to decline by 1.4% on an annual basis to $676,705 in 2025. That said, only British Columbia and Ontario are forecast to see declines in average home prices this year, but the combination of those declines, along with fewer sales in those expensive provinces was enough to offset price gains in the range of 4% to 8% in most other provinces in 2025.

In 2026, national home sales are forecast to rebound by 7.7% to 509,479—the highest level for activity since 2021, though still well below that peak and slightly under the 10-year average. Historically, national home sales have only ever cracked the half million mark seven times, with the first instance back in 2007.

The national average home price is forecast to increase by 3.2% from 2025 to $698,622 in 2026. This would mark the sixth straight year where the national average home price has hovered around the $700,000 range.

That said, it’s important to reiterate that all forecasts are still subject to higher than normal levels of uncertainty, though maybe less now than in the first half of 2025.

Each quarter, CREA updates its forecast for home sales activity and average home prices via Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Systems of Canadian real estate boards and associations. CREA’s next forecast will be published on Thursday, January 15, 2026.

About the Canadian Real Estate Association

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is one of Canada’s largest single-industry associations. CREA works on behalf of more than 160,000 REALTORS® who contribute to the economic and social well-being of communities across Canada. Together they advocate for property owners, buyers, and sellers.