Realtors to Canadians: Chill out

Steve Ladurantaye Real Estate Reporter

Globe and Mail Update

There will be no drastic drop in Canadian housing prices, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Thursday, because house prices will stabilize and climbing household income will make owning a home more affordable.

Responding to reports from some of the country’s largest banks that prices could see drops of as much as 10 per cent in the next two years as higher mortgage rates and rising prices make housing more expensive, the association said the naysayers are ignoring the cyclical nature of Canada’s real estate market.

“The relationship between average price and income has recently been cited as portending a U.S.-style correction in Canadian home prices,” said the association’s chief economist Gregory Klump. “However, such warnings ignore the longer-term relationship between prices and income, and disregard typical Canadian housing market cycle dynamics.”

The housing market has been key to Canada’s recovery, with average prices up 23 per cent from their recessionary lows at the end of April. The average price of a home at the end of April was $344,968, the highest on record and 7 per cent higher than before the recession