Housing Continued to Surge in January

The seasonally adjusted activity was running at an annualized pace of 736,452 units in January, significantly above CREA’s current 2021 forecast for 583,635 home sales this year. Sales will be hard-pressed to maintain current activity levels in the busier months to come, absent a surge of much-needed new supply; However, that could materialize as current COVID-19 restrictions are increasingly eased and the weather starts to improve.

A mixed bag of gains led to the month-over-month increase in national sales activity from December to January, including Edmonton, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and Chilliwack B.C., Calgary, Montreal and Winnipeg. There was more of a pattern to the declines in January. Many of those were in Ontario markets, following predictions that sales in that part of the country might dip to start the year with so little inventory currently available and many of this year’s sellers likely to remain on the sidelines until spring.

Actual (not seasonally adjusted) sales activity posted a 35.2% y-o-y gain in January. In line with activity since last summer, it was a new record for January by a considerable margin. For the seventh straight month, sales activity was up in almost all Canadian housing markets compared to the same month the previous year. Among the 11 markets that posted year-over-year sales declines, nine were in Ontario, where supply is extremely limited at the moment.

CREA Chair Costa Poulopoulos said, “The two big challenges facing housing markets this year are the same ones we were facing last year – COVID and a lack of supply. It’s looking like our collective efforts to bring those COVID cases down over the last month and a half are working. With luck, some potential sellers who balked at wading into the market last year will feel more comfortable listing this year.”

The dearth of new listings continues to be the biggest problem in the housing market. As we move into the spring market and continue to see fewer COVID cases, the likelihood is that new supply will emerge. But for now, the number of newly listed homes plunged 13.3% in January, led by double-digit declines in the GTA, Hamilton-Burlington, London and St. Thomas, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec and Halifax Dartmouth.

With sales edging higher and new supply falling considerably in January, the national sales-to-new listings ratio tightened to 90.7% – the highest level on record for the measure by a significant margin. The previous monthly record was 81.5%, set 19 years ago. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.3%.

Based on a comparison of sales-to-new listings ratio with long-term averages, only about 20% of all local markets were in balanced market territory in January, measured as being within one standard deviation of their long-term average. The other 80% were above long-term norms, in many cases well above. This was a record for the number of markets in seller’s market territory.

There were only 1.9 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of January 2021 – the lowest reading on record for this measure. At the local market level, some 35 Ontario markets were under one month of inventory at the end of January.

Low available supply is the reason property values will continue to go up. Strong demand pre-pandemic and the historic market rally since summer have cleaned up inventories in many parts of the country. Relative to the 10-year average, active listings had plummeted between 50% and 61% in Ontario, Quebec and most of Atlantic Canada, and 29% in BC by the late stages of 2020. And that’s despite a surge in downtown condo listings since spring in Canada’s largest cities. With so few options to choose from (outside downtown condos), buyers will continue to compete fiercely. Buyers in the Prairie Provinces, and Newfoundland and Labrador, however, will feel less pressure to outbid each other given supply isn’t quite as scarce in these markets.

Home Prices

Viewed from another angle, sellers enter 2021 holding a powerful hand when setting prices in most of Canada. We see this continuing during most of 2021. We expect provincial sales-to-new listings ratios—a reliable gauge of price pressure—to generally stay above the threshold (0.60) where sellers have historically yielded more pricing power. In several cases (including BC, Ontario and Quebec), ratios are well above the threshold, providing plenty of buffer against demand-supply conditions flipping in favour of buyers.

The Aggregate Composite MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) rose by 1.9% m-o-m in January 2021. Of the 40 markets now tracked by the index, prices were up on a m-o-m basis in 36.

The non-seasonally adjusted Aggregate Composite MLS® HPI was up 13.5% on a y-o-y basis in January – the biggest gain since June 2017.

The largest y-o-y gains – above 30% – were recorded in the Lakelands region of Ontario cottage country, Northumberland Hills, Quinte & District, Tillsonburg District and Woodstock-Ingersoll.

Y-o-y price increases in the 25-30% range were seen in Barrie, Niagara, Grey-Bruce Owen Sound, Huron Perth, Kawartha Lakes, London & St. Thomas, North Bay, Simcoe & District and Southern Georgian Bay.

Y-o-y price gains followed this in the range of 20-25% in Hamilton, Guelph, Oakville-Milton, Bancroft and Area, Brantford, Cambridge, Kitchener-Waterloo, Peterborough and the Kawarthas, Ottawa and Greater Moncton.

Prices were up 16.6% compared to last January in Montreal. Meanwhile, y-o-y price gains were in the 10-15% range on Vancouver Island, Chilliwack, the Okanagan Valley, Winnipeg, the GTA and Mississauga. Prices rose in the 5-10% range in Victoria, Greater Vancouver, Regina and Saskatoon. Home prices were up 2% and 2.2% in Calgary and Edmonton, respectively.

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 a 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.

The marked shift in housing strength from urban centres–Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal–to perimeter cities is ongoing. For example, Toronto’s prices are up ‘only’ 11.9% y-o-y, but Barrie (+27%) and London (26%) have far outpaced these gains.

Condo price growth has slowed to just 3.1% y-o-y, or a record 14.3 percentage points below the price gains in single-detached homes. That’s by far the widest gap in 20 years and reflects the hunt for space and social distancing.

Housing starts (reported yesterday by CMHC) surged to 282,428 annualized units in January, the second-highest monthly posting since 1990. This figure could be distorted upward by the unseasonably mild January weather in much of the country. But the new high in starts is in line with record sales and solid building permits.

For policymakers, it doesn’t appear that there’s much interest in leaning against a sector that is helping to prop up the economy, especially with years of tightening mortgage rules already in place.

There appears to be little on the horizon to stop sales or prices from reaching new heights in 2021. Yet, cooling signs will emerge as the year progresses, which will come into fuller view next year. The foremost restraining factors will be a rise in new listings, waning pandemic-induced market churn, a modest creep-up in interest rates and an erosion of affordability. Call it a 2022 soft landing.

2020 Was a Blockbuster Year for Housing

The increase in national sales activity from November to December was driven by gains of more than 20% in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Greater Vancouver.

On a year-over-year basis (y-o-y), activity rocketed upward by 47.2% as interest rates hit record lows, housing needs changed owing to the pandemic, and supply was insufficient to meet demand. The housing boom occurred despite the fall in population growth, reflecting the dearth of new immigration. The yearly change in population growth in Canada nosedived in 2020 after climbing powerfully in the prior four years. Despite this headwind, for 2020 as a whole, 551,392 homes traded hands over Canadian MLS® Systems – a new annual record. This is an increase of 12.6% from 2019 and stood 2.3% above the previous record set in 2016.

“The stat to watch in 2021 will be new listings, particularly in the spring – how many existing owners will put their homes up for sale?” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s Senior Economist. “We already have record-setting sales, but we know demand is much stronger than those numbers suggest because we see can see it impacting prices. On New Year’s Day, there were fewer than 100,000 residential listings on all Canadian MLS® Systems, the lowest ever based on records going back three decades. Compare that to five years ago, when there was a quarter of a million listings available for sale. So we have record-high demand and record-low supply to start the year. How that plays out in the sales and price data will depend on how many homes become available to buy in the months ahead. Ideally, we’d like for households to be able to find and acquire the homes that best suit their needs and for housing to remain affordable, but the fact is we’re facing a major supply problem in 2021.”

The number of newly listed homes climbed by 3.4% in December, led by more new listings in the GTA and B.C. Lower Mainland, the same parts of Canada that saw the biggest sales gains in December.

With sales up by more than new supply in December, the national sales-to-new listings ratio tightened to 77.4% – among the highest levels on record for the measure. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.2%.

Based on a comparison of sales-to-new listings ratio with long-term averages, only about 30% of all local markets were in balanced market territory in December, measured as being within one standard deviation of their long-term average. The other 70% of markets were above long-term norms, in many cases well above.

There were just 2.1 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of December 2020 – the lowest reading on record for this measure. At the local market level, 29 Ontario markets were under one month of inventory at the end of December.

Home Prices

The Aggregate Composite MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) rose by 1.5% m-o-m in December 2020. Of the 40 markets now tracked by the index, only one was down between November and December.

The non-seasonally adjusted Aggregate Composite MLS® HPI was up 13% on a y-o-y basis in December – the biggest gain since June 2017 (see chart below).

The largest y-o-y gains – above 30% – were recorded in Quinte & District, Simcoe & District, Woodstock-Ingersoll and the Lakelands region of the Ontario cottage country (see the table below for details).

Y-o-y price increases in the 25-30% range were seen in Bancroft and Area, Grey Bruce Owen Sound, Kawartha Lakes, North Bay, Northumberland Hills and Tillsonburg District.

This was followed by y-o-y price gains in the range of 20-25% in Barrie, Hamilton, Niagara, Brantford, Cambridge, Huron Perth, Kitchener-Waterloo, London & St. Thomas, Southern Georgian Bay and Ottawa.

Prices were up in the 15-20% range compared to last December in Oakville-Milton, Peterborough and the Kawarthas, Montreal and Greater Moncton.

Meanwhile, y-o-y price gains were in the 10-15% range in the GTA and Mississauga, Quebec City, and the 5-10% range across B.C., and in Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and St. John’s NL.

Alberta still lagged owing to the still-negative oil market scene, where home prices were up only 1.5% and 2.7% in Calgary and Edmonton, respectively.

The MLS® HPI provides the best way to gauge price trends because averages are strongly distorted by changes in sales activity mix from one month to the next.

The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average home price was a record $607,280 in December 2020, up 17.1% from the same month last year.

Housing strength is largely attributable to record-low mortgage rates and strong demand for more spacious accommodation by households that have maintained their income level during the pandemic. The hardest-hit households are low-wage earners in the accommodation, food services, non-essential retail and tourism-related sectors. These are the folks that can least afford it and typically are not homeowners.  

We end 2020 with the national average home price up 17.1%–a dramatic surge rather than the 9-18% decline forecast by CMHC last March. Moreover, 2021 is likely to be another strong year for housing.  It would not surprise me if annual sales reached a new high in 2021, especially in the first half of the year. There will, however, be cooling signs as the year progresses and especially into 2022. Firstly, supply constraints are a major factor as new listings remain low relative to demand. As well, the pandemic-induced changes in housing needs will have a waning effect over time. As vaccine injections rise across the country and we return to a new normal, interest rates will creep up moderately. This along with higher home prices will slow the pace of activity as affordability erodes.

There will be mitigating factors in 2022: the number of new immigrants is slated to rise to roughly 500,000 that year and demand for short-term Airbnb rentals will rise sharply as tourism revives.

Canadian Jobs Market Tanked in December

The jobless rate rose a tick to 8.6%–well below the peak of 13.7% in April–but still three percentage points above its pre-pandemic level.

However, there were some bright spots as several sectors churned out small gains (see second chart below).  Among them were finance, insurance and real estate, as well as scientific and tech services. Manufacturing rose 15,400, and public administration reported solid gains.

On a positive note, full-time jobs actually rose 36,500, and average wages pushed back up and are now 5.6% higher than one year ago. This outsized gain, in part, reflects the loss in so many low-wage jobs.

Part-time jobs were down sharply in December, led by losses among workers aged 24 and under and those aged 55 and older. Also, the number of self-employed workers fell by 62,000, its lowest point since the pandemic began.

The December loss of jobs left employment down 571,600 (or -3.0%) from year-ago levels, the deepest annual decline since 1982–but far better than the April reading of -15% y/y. The 2020 job loss in Canada of -3.0% is also a relatively mild downturn compared to today’s US job market release for December, which reported a -6.2% y/y drop in employment. In Canada, the 332,300 y/y loss in accommodation and food services employment alone accounted for 58% of our annual job loss.

It certainly doesn’t appear that the lockdowns will be lifted anytime soon. We keep hitting new records in the number of Covid cases, and the more contagious Covid variant is upon us. What’s more, the rollout of the vaccine has been disturbingly slow. So until winter is behind us, there is unlikely to be a meaningful opening of the economy. All things considered, Canada’s economy has been relatively resilient. That’s not surprising given the government income support–the most generous in the G7 countries. Moreover, financial conditions are extremely accommodative.

Although no one is coming through the pandemic unscathed, most of the employment losses have been lower-paying jobs. Many higher-income earners continue to work from home. And even though the pandemic is worsening, many of Canada’s housing markets recorded their strongest December ever. Rock-bottom interest rates, high household savings and changing housing needs turned 2020 into a spectacular year for housing activity.

According to local real estate boards, December resales were surprisingly strong for what is typically a quiet month. Existing home sales surged between 32% y/y in Montreal, Ottawa and Edmonton and 65% y/y in Toronto based on early results. More distant suburbs attracted many families looking for more space with less concern about long commutes when jobs can be conducted at home. Property values continued to appreciate at accelerating rates in most markets. Downtown condo prices still bucked the trend due to ample inventories in Canada’s largest cities—the downturn in the rental market has prompted many condo investors to sell. That said, softer condo prices are now drawing more buyers in. Existing condo sales soared virtually everywhere in December.

Housing is likely to continue to cushion the blow of the pandemic on the overall economy. And while not everyone is sharing in this windfall, it will ultimately help pave the way to better employment gains in the spring.

However, no question that the bright light at the end of the very dark pandemic tunnel is a widely dispersed vaccine. PM Trudeau reasserted this week that the vaccine will be available to all who want it by September 2021. At the pace, it is now getting into people’s arms, that will not happen. Just over 0.6% of Canada’s population was vaccinated as of Thursday, January 7. By comparison, the US had vaccinated 1.8% of its population by that date, and Israel had inoculated nearly 20%, according to Our World in Data, a nonprofit research project at the University of Oxford. The U.K. had vaccinated about 1.9% of its population by Jan. 3, the latest date for which vaccination numbers were available (see the chart below).