February home sales fell but CREA still hopeful for strong spring market

The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales continued moving at a slow pace in February but activity started to pick up near the end of the month.

A total of 30,244 homes changed hands throughout the country last month, which was 8.1 per cent lower than February 2025. Sales also fell 1.3 per cent month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Despite a quiet start to the year, CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart said the association still expects pent-up demand from first-time buyers will translate to sales in 2026.

“They’ve had to wait a long time for mortgage rates to find a bottom, but some will no doubt continue to hold off for a bottom in prices in some Ontario and British Columbia markets,” he said in a news release.

In its most recent forecast to kick off the year, the association said it expected national home sales to grow 5.1 per cent in 2026. CREA also projected a 2.8 per cent bump in the national average home price to $698,881.

In February, the national average sale price ticked 0.2 per cent lower from a year ago to $663,828.

CREA’s home price index, which aims to represent the sale of typical homes, edged 0.6 per cent lower between January and February and was down 4.8 per cent on a year-over-year basis.

With the spring market approaching, it could be ill-advised for buyers to hold out for even lower prices, said Shawn Zigelstein, a broker for Royal LePage Signature Realty. He warned the longer buyers sit on the sidelines, the more “aggressive” the market could be once sentiment turns a corner.

“Buyers really want to know … ‘Is it the right time to make a move or do I wait?’ A lot of people in the past, they were like, ‘We timed the market perfectly, we sold at the exact right time, we bought at the exact time,'” Zigelstein said.

“No offence to all of those people, but that was luck. You cannot time a market perfectly because nobody has that crystal ball to know exactly what the market is going to do.”

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

“For a first-time buyer, it’s a great opportunity to get into the market right now, especially … if we’re talking (Greater Toronto Area) market, if we’re talking Vancouver market,” said Zigelstein.

“You’ve got markets across the country that are not in the same situation.”

CREA said activity was particularly slow last month in the stretch of Ontario between Windsor and Toronto.

While some are likely waiting for spring to make their move, BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic said weak sales numbers so far this year can’t be solely attributed to seasonal trends.

“Tough winter weather has probably played a role to start the year, but that shouldn’t distract from soft underlying demand,” he said in a note.

“When the market eventually awakens for spring, there will no doubt be some pent-up demand, but also likely a wave of pent-up listings that didn’t sell since the fall. How those two sides interact will determine if the market can tighten up through the rest of the year.”

The association said there were 151,850 properties listed for sale on all Canadian MLS systems at the end of February, up 3.7 per cent from a year earlier but 12.3 per cent below the long-term average for that time of year.

The number of newly listed properties fell 3.9 per cent month-over-month, erasing the jump recorded in January.