Home price indexes down in November in all markets except Quebec City, Halifax and Victoria
In November the Teranet–National Bank National Composite House Price IndexTM was down 0.3% from the previous month.[1] A November decline is not the norm – this was only the fourth in 20 years of index history. It was the second consecutive monthly decline. November’s retreat was quite broad-based: component indexes were down on the month in eight of the 11 metropolitan markets surveyed – Vancouver (−0.6%), Calgary (−0.6%), Edmonton (−0.6%), Winnipeg (−0.5%), Ottawa-Gatineau (−0.4%), Toronto (−0.1%), Hamilton (−0.1%) and Montreal (−0.1%). The index for Victoria was flat. Indexes were up for Halifax (0.1%) and Quebec City (1.2%). The decline of the Montreal index, the first in eight months, was hardly enough to end its upward trend over those months – a cumulative rise of 4.4%, consistent with seller’s-market conditions. Market conditions are quite different in Calgary, where the index has now declined four months in a row, for a cumulative loss of 1.4%. The index for Toronto has retreated 0.4% over the last three months.
- Composite 11
- All Metropolitan Indices
- British Columbia
- Alberta
- Manitoba
- Ontario
- Quebec
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland
- Nova Scotia
In November the composite index was up 3.1% from a year earlier, a larger 12-month rise than in the last three months thanks to an abrupt index decline from August to October of 2017. As a result of gains earlier this year, November 12‑month rises were above the countrywide average in Victoria (5.3%), Ottawa-Gatineau (5.3%), Montreal (4.4%), Hamilton (4.4%), Vancouver (3.9%) and Toronto (3.3%). Indexes were also up from a year earlier in Winnipeg (2.3%) and Halifax (1.7%). Indexes were down from a year earlier in Quebec City (−0.3%), Edmonton (−0.4%) and Calgary (−2.7%).
Besides the Toronto and Hamilton indexes included in the composite index, indexes exist for seven other urban areas of the Golden Horseshoe. In November, most of these were down or at best flat from the previous month: Brantford (−0.8%), Guelph (−0.6%), Oshawa (−0.6%), Peterborough (−0.3%), Barrie (flat) and St. Catharines (flat). The exception was Kitchener (+0.6%). Two of these indexes, Barrie and Oshawa, were, like Toronto and Hamilton, below their peaks of Q3 2017. All were up from a year earlier, the gains ranging 1.3% for Oshawa to 8.9% for Peterborough.
Indexes not included in the composite index also exist for seven markets outside the Golden Horseshoe, five of them in Ontario and two in B.C. In November, five of them were down from the previous month: Sudbury (−1.6%), Abbotsford-Mission (−0.5%), London (−0.3%), Kelowna (−0.1%) and Thunder Bay (−0.1%). Two of them were up: Windsor (+0.6%) and Kingston (+0.6%). The changes of these indexes from a year earlier ranged from −3.0% for Thunder Bay to +12.8 % for Windsor.
[1] Note on methodology: The current-month data used to calculate the index are those of closed sales registered in the provincial land registry. To illustrate the home price trend, the published indexes of the 11 metropolitan markets entering into the Teranet–National Bank Composite House Price Index™ are moving averages of the last three months of raw indexes, a procedure that evens out month-to-month fluctuations. More granular monthly data are available upon request, subject to subscription fees. For our full methodology, please visit www.housepriceindex.ca
Metropolitan area | Index Level | % change m/m | % change y/y | From peak | Peak date |
Marc Pinsonneault
Senior Economist
Economics and Strategy Group
National Bank of Canada