After having declined by nearly 11% seasonally adjusted (SA) from November 2025 to March 2026, Canada's housing sales have since recovered more than half of this decline with increases in April and May, said Scotiabank.
In this latter month, national sales posted a 5.5% (SA) monthly rise, the strongest since October 2024, noted the bank.
From April to May, national new listings declined by 1% (SA), essentially continuing their modest downward trend that started in September 2025. From May 2025 to the same month in 2026, national new listings declined 7.9% non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) with most local markets Scotiabank tracks contributing to this national annual decline.
With the rise in sales and the decline in new listings from April to May, the national sales-to-new listings ratio rose from 46.2 to 49.2% (SA). This indicator also edged up 2.2 percentage points (SA) from the same month in 2025. This performance suggests a tightening in market conditions over these periods, but this ratio has been hovering in the lower half of the balanced conditions range -- hence close to buyers' favorable zone -- since March of 2024, and indeed for most of the period since Spring 2022.
National sales increased for a second consecutive month in May, which is welcome news, and in line with Scotiabank's expectations of some pick-up in housing demand as the ongoing economic uncertainty related to global trade tensions starts fading.
The bank added it must witness a sustained upward trend in housing demand and tightening in market conditions before it can see a recovery in the national house price, and especially in Ontario and British Columbia markets given their influence on national figures.
Housing demand in recent years has been weakened by first the rise in mortgage rates on the heels of the tightening cycle for monetary policy from early-2022 to mid-2023, and second by the increase in global trade frictions and resulting economic uncertainty triggered by the United States administration since shortly after the November 2024 presidential election, stated Scotiabank.
Housing market conditions were further softened by the robust performance of housing starts in recent years, including the sharp rise in recently completed and unabsorbed housing units, which provided additional supply options to potential buyers.