In the end, the rollercoaster that was 2020 left Canada’s housing market more or less where it started the year: full of bidding wars, escalating prices and exasperated buyers unable to find a home they can afford. The pandemic changed some dynamics—it drove many buyers to the suburbs, exurbs and beyond, ground immigration to virtual halt, triggered a downturn in big cities’ rental markets and caused households to build up their savings—but it didn’t dial down the market’s heat. We expect this to largely continue in 2021. We see little that will stop activity or prices from reaching new heights in the year ahead. We forecast the national benchmark price to rise 8.4% to $669,000 and home resales to increase 6.5% to 588,300 units with almost all provinces showing gains. Yet we also expect cooling signs to emerge, which will come into fuller display in 2022. The main restraining factors will be a lack of supply, waning pandemic-induced market churn, a modest creep-up in interest rates and an erosion of affordability. Call it a 2022 soft landing. Of course, we can’t exclude the possibility of a rougher landing—either in 2022 or earlier—so long as the pandemic remains a threat to our economy though large-scale vaccination campaigns should mitigate that risk.

Please click here for full report.

“You cannot break records without breaking fear first.” ~ Matshona Dhliwayo