Housing Market Trends Canada: Price, Sales & Rental Forecast

Canada’s housing market cooled through the first half of 2026. Prices are down nationally, and sales are basically flat against what was already a decade-low baseline. Anyone watching this year’s numbers is really watching three things collide: interest rates that won’t budge, U.S. tariffs on building materials, and a population that’s shrinking rather than growing. Each one pulls the market in a different direction, and the result is a country split almost cleanly in two, buyer-friendly regions on one side, seller-friendly ones on the other, with not much in between.

This piece walks through the national numbers, the provincial and city-level splits, the forecast through 2028, and what all of it means for renters and for U.S. buyers eyeing property north of the border.

What Are the Current Housing Market Trends in Canada?

The market held balanced in June 2026. The national benchmark price sat at $665,600, down 3.6% year-over-year, with 4.8 months of supply nationally. National home sales reached 38,014 units, up 0.5% from May but down 2.2% from June 2025. Average home price (a separate measure from the benchmark) dropped below $700,000 for the first time in months, landing at $696,078.

Three numbers tell you where things stand. The sales-to-new-listings ratio climbed to 50.2%, up from 49.2% in May, meaning demand strengthened a little relative to supply. Months of inventory held steady at 4.8, a level both CREA and CMHC call balanced. New listings fell 1.3% month-over-month to 75,725, so the available pool got tighter even as prices softened.

Five provinces hit at least one price record in June: Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Manitoba. Ontario and British Columbia went the other way, posting the country’s steepest annual declines at 4.6% and 5.0%. That split, strength in the smaller markets, weakness in the two biggest ones, is really the story of this whole cycle.

How Have Home Prices Changed Across Canadian Provinces?

Prices fell in Canada’s two largest provinces while five smaller ones set new records. And the gap between those two groups has widened for six straight months now.

Province	June 2026 Benchmark Price	Annual Change
British Columbia	$887,100	-5.0%
Ontario	$753,300	-4.6%
Quebec	$550,400	+4.3%
Alberta	$516,600	-1.7%
Nova Scotia	$431,700	-1.3%
Manitoba	$398,700	+3.8%
Saskatchewan	$385,900	+4.8%
PEI	$383,300	+1.4%
Newfoundland	$358,000	+10.8%
New Brunswick	$342,600	+5.9%

Newfoundland and Labrador posted the strongest annual growth in the country, 10.8%, and it’s coming from tight local supply and steady demand from people who already live there, not speculative buying. New Brunswick followed at 5.9% despite a 2.7% dip that month. Saskatchewan and Quebec both cleared 4% annual growth on the back of tight inventory: Saskatchewan had just 2.5 months of supply in June, the tightest of any province being tracked.

British Columbia stayed the most buyer-friendly major market, with 6.4 months of supply giving purchasers room to negotiate. Ontario, despite the price decline, was technically balanced at 4.2 months of supply. But a pile of listings from investors and from owners selling because of mortgage renewals kept pressure on prices across the Greater Toronto Area.

What’s Actually Driving This?

Three forces: rates that aren’t moving, U.S. tariffs on construction materials, and slower population growth. None of these operate in isolation. Each one hits both the demand side and the supply side at the same time.

Rates and Renewals

The Bank of Canada’s policy rate is expected to hold at 2.25% until 2027, which kills the “rate cut” boost some forecasters were counting on earlier this year. A large share of outstanding mortgages will renew in 2026, and plenty of those borrowers locked in low rates during the pandemic. Renewing at a five-year fixed rate somewhere between 4.09% and 4.65%, depending on the lender, is going to raise monthly payments for a lot of homeowners. Some will list rather than eat the extra cost, which adds supply in already-soft markets like the GTA.

Tariffs and Building Costs

U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum, glass, and major appliances are tacking an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 onto the cost of building a new home in Canada, roughly $22,000 to $36,500 USD at current exchange rates. Developers do the math and delay or cancel projects rather than absorb that loss. Condo presales in Vancouver and Victoria dropped hard through 2025, and CMHC expects more projects in both cities to get postponed or scrapped through 2028. Toronto’s pre-construction condo sales hit multi-decade lows in 2025 for the same reason.

Immigration and Population

Statistics Canada recorded a third straight quarterly population decline, driven by roughly a 20% drop in new permanent immigrants along with more deaths than births. Less population growth means less demand on both sides of the market: fewer renters coming in, fewer buyers hitting the two-year residency mark that unlocks favorable mortgage terms. At the same time, people who arrived in 2022 through 2024 are now crossing that residency threshold and moving from renting into ownership. That’s creating a structural floor under prices in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary, even while the broader population trend is pulling demand down.

How Will the Market Perform Through 2028?

CMHC’s baseline forecast has national home sales rising to 457,200 in 2026, then 472,900 in 2027 and 485,500 in 2028, with prices recovering slowly. The national average price is expected to hold near $675,200 in 2026 before reaching $698,900 in 2027 and $717,300 in 2028.

Real GDP growth is projected at just 0.7% for 2026, one of the weakest years outside an actual recession in recent memory. CMHC’s more pessimistic scenario puts growth at -0.1%, essentially flat to negative, if trade tensions worsen or infrastructure spending slows. Under that path, 2026 sales land closer to 455,000 units with average prices near $674,300, both a touch below baseline.

The regional forecasts pull apart from here. The Prairies and Quebec are expected to lead price growth because demand there is structurally strong. British Columbia and Ontario are forecast to post the weakest growth of any region, held back by affordability limits and slower population gains. Housing starts nationally are projected to fall from 259,028 in 2025 to about 241,400 in 2026, then down again to 223,400 in 2027, before a partial rebound to 211,900 by 2028. Ontario’s condo segment takes the sharpest hit, now in its fifth straight year of decline.

Which Cities Are Strongest, Which Are Weakest?

Alberta and Saskatchewan currently favor sellers. British Columbia and parts of Ontario favor buyers. That’s based on months-of-supply data from June 2026: Alberta had 2.8 months, Saskatchewan just 2.5, both firmly seller’s-market territory. British Columbia sat at 6.4 months, the loosest major market in the country.

Calgary’s resale market is expected to cool off from its recent peak, held back by a shortage of lower-priced units even as prices grow modestly. Edmonton remains one of the more resilient cities largely because it’s affordable, and it keeps drawing steady first-time buyer demand despite a modest sales decline forecast for the year. Saskatoon had a strong 2025 and should stay elevated through 2026, supported by immigration-driven demand for ground-oriented homes.

Toronto is a different story. Sales are projected to climb off a 25-year low as affordability improves a little, but activity stays below the city’s 10-year average through the forecast window. CMHC’s summer 2026 update actually lowered its price outlook for Toronto compared to the winter forecast, now projecting the average MLS price to fall to $1,020,000 in 2026 before climbing back to $1,100,000 by 2028. Vancouver’s resale market is set to recover moderately after its slowest stretch in over two decades, with the growth concentrated near the downtown core rather than spread evenly.

What Does This Mean for Renters?

National asking rents fell 4.3% year-over-year to $2,033 in June 2026, which was actually a third straight monthly increase after bottoming out in March. Purpose-built apartments held up best, down just 3.1% annually, while condos fell 6.8% and houses dropped 7.4% over the same stretch.

Vacancy rates climbed sharply through late 2025 and into 2026, and renters have more leverage now than they’ve had in over a decade in several major markets. Vancouver’s vacancy rate hit its highest point in more than 30 years. Toronto’s is forecast to climb from 3.0% in 2025 to 3.8% in 2026, driven by a wave of newly finished purpose-built rentals meeting slower population growth. Calgary’s is projected to rise from 5.0% to 5.9% over the same window, the highest among major Prairie cities, as landlords compete against a record volume of new rental completions.

North Vancouver stayed Canada’s most expensive rental market at $2,983 a month across all unit types. St. John’s, Newfoundland sat at the other end, $1,172. Edmonton had the lowest average rent among major Prairie cities at $1,610, which keeps reinforcing its reputation as the most affordable large market for renters looking to buy.

What About U.S. Buyers and Investors?

A weaker Canadian dollar makes Canadian real estate roughly 25% to 30% cheaper for U.S. buyers than the listed CAD price would suggest, based on exchange rates near 0.72 to 0.73. That $665,600 CAD benchmark home works out to something like $479,000 to $486,000 USD, before closing costs, legal fees, or currency conversion charges.

Non-resident buyers face a few things Canadian citizens don’t. Several provinces, including British Columbia and Ontario, charge a non-resident speculation tax on foreign purchasers, which can add 15% to 25% on top of the purchase price depending on the municipality and property type. Anyone buying from the U.S. should build that tax into the total cost before comparing Canadian prices to what they’d pay at home.

Snowbird and seasonal-resident demand adds its own layer here, especially in warmer Canadian regions and in U.S. corridors like Florida and Arizona that pull retired Canadians the other way. Americans looking for a second home in Canada tend to cluster in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, coastal Nova Scotia, and Quebec’s Eastern Townships, where price growth has outpaced Toronto and Vancouver while still coming in below U.S. coastal markets on a per-square-foot basis.

Housing Starts and New Construction

National housing starts are projected to fall to 241,400 units in 2026, continuing the slide from 259,028 in 2025 and marking Ontario’s fifth straight year of dropping new-home construction. High construction costs, tariff-driven material price increases, and rising inventories of unsold units are the three factors CMHC keeps citing across its regional breakdowns.

Purpose-built rental construction remains the strongest part of new supply nationally, even as it eases off 2025’s record pace. Ontario hit a milestone in 2025 when rental starts overtook condo starts for the first time in the province’s recorded history, and that trend should continue through 2026 as institutional investors and federal financing keep rental projects moving even while condo presales stall out. Ground-oriented construction (single-detached, semi-detached, townhomes) should recover later in the forecast window, led by the Prairies, Ontario, and British Columbia as affordability slowly improves.

The regional split shows up here too. The Prairies are expected to hold starts above their historical average through 2026, while Ontario and British Columbia fall to some of the weakest construction levels in two decades. Quebec sees only modest declines from its elevated 2025 base before dropping further after 2027. Developers everywhere are citing the same math: tariff-inflated material costs plus softer buyer demand make new projects harder to finance no matter where you are.

The Bottom Line

Housing market trends in Canada through the rest of 2026 point toward a country moving in two directions at once. Record prices in Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick. Continued softness in Toronto and Vancouver. CMHC’s baseline forecast puts national sales at 457,200 for the year, climbing toward 485,500 by 2028, while construction activity keeps falling through that same window. For U.S. buyers, the combination of a weaker Canadian dollar and provincial non-resident taxes means the real cost of entry varies more by province than the national headline numbers let on, so any purchase decision should start with that province-level math, not the national average.

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