The slight decline in a leading measure of Canadian home prices in October is not unusual.
The Teranet-National Bank National Composite House Price Index typically reflects a fourth-quarter slowdown in price gains and last month’s 0.1% decline was in line with the last 10 Octobers.
However, the month-over-month gain for the Vancouver HPI is noteworthy, being the first in 15 months. This follows a rebound for the market, which has seen improved home sales since August.
The indexes for Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal, and Winnipeg all ended their multi-month increases but the index commentary says there is no reason to assume this is the start of a new downward trend as Toronto and Winnipeg appear to be balanced markets with Montreal and Hamilton favouring sellers, based on recent sales data.
The index, which tracks increases in home prices based on a reading of 100 in June 2005, shows that the national composite of 11 major markets sits at 227.60, down 0.05% month-over-month and up 0.99% year-over-year.
The cumulative gain for 2019 is only 1% as strength in the past 6 months was dampened by weakness in the previous 6 months.
Month-over-month, there were declines for Edmonton (−1.0%), Winnipeg (−0.4%), Toronto (−0.2%), Hamilton (−0.2%), Calgary (−0.1%) and Montreal (−0.1%). Gains were posted for Quebec City (0.1%), Vancouver (0.2%), Ottawa-Gatineau (0.2%), Victoria (0.7%) and Halifax (1.3%).