May home sales down 5.1 per cent from year earlier, but CREA says momentum building

The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in May were down compared with a year ago, but there was “meaningful upward momentum” month-over-month for the first time this year.

The organization said home sales in May totalled 47,014, down 5.1 per cent from May 2025. However, activity was up 5.5 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis compared with April this year.

Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s senior economist, said the month-over-month increase was broad-based but driven disproportionately by Ontario.

“While it was just the first month in 2026 to see any meaningful upward momentum in headline demand, under the surface conditions have been improving for some time,” he said in a news release.

“Sellers’ and buyers’ expectations are increasingly aligned, as evidenced by tightening sale-to-list price ratios and shorter periods between listing and sale dates. As a result, prices have largely stabilized following some softness earlier in the year.”

The national average sale price of a home sold in May was $702,079, up 1.5 per cent on a year-over-year basis. It was the highest national average price in two years and the first time the figure has topped the $700,000-mark in 23 months.

CREA’s home price index, which aims to represent the sale of typical homes, edged 0.1 per cent lower between April and May. The index was down 4.1 per cent on a year-over-year basis, the smallest year-over-year decline so far in 2026.

Regionally, prices remained down on a year-over-year basis in B.C., Alberta and Ontario, offsetting gains in other provinces.

Real estate analysts have described a tempered spring market amid cautious consumer behaviour. The sentiment is often linked to inflation and economic uncertainty associated with trade and international conflict.

Eddy Chang, a sales representative with Royal LePage Noralta Real Estate in Edmonton, said it’s been a “steady” spring thus far, especially compared with last year’s “turbocharged” spring market in that city.

“Things definitely boomed, but not to the point where it felt like it took off on a rocket,” he said in an interview.

“Definitely, you could feel the seasonality, but my boots on the ground experience is that it was more of a steady pace rather than rocket fuel.”

In May, residential sales were down 12.5 per cent year-over-year in Edmonton, while activity ticked up 0.8 per cent month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted basis. Average sale prices rose 5.5 per cent from May 2025 and one per cent from April.

Chang said the second half of last year saw a considerable slowdown as the market adjusted to tariff-fuelled fears.

“Although it’s not gone, there’s less doom and gloom about it,” he said.

“Last year I had a couple clients that wanted to put their home search on pause because of these uncertainties and now people are back shopping, they’re coming out of the woodwork and they’re a lot more confident with their purchasing power.”

BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic said the combination of pent-up demand and a gradual relenting on price by sellers should start to bring volumes back into the market, and May’s data might be some evidence of that.

“The floor under Canada’s hardest-hit housing markets might be firming, even if we’re still unlikely to see a charged rebound,” he said in a note.

“We continue to see a long evolution in this housing cycle, and it appears that the price destruction phase is running its course, at least for single-family homes.”

May’s data is consistent with forecasts that national home sales “will grind higher through the second half,” added TD economist Rishi Sondhi.

“We also foresee a modest rise in Canadian average home prices in (the second half of 2026), backed by firmer gains in markets outside of Ontario, where supply/demand balances still favour buyers.”

CREA said new listings for May were down one per cent on a month-over-month basis.

There were just over 200,000 properties listed for sale across Canada at the end of May, unchanged from a year earlier and 2.8 per cent below the long-term average for that time of year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 16, 2026.

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press