CREA Cut Its 2026 Home Sales Forecast to 444,530. That Would Be the Weakest Year Since 2008.
The Canadian Real Estate Association cut its 2026 home sales forecast this morning to 444,530 residential sales on Canadian MLS Systems, a 5.2% decline from 2025 and 18,806 fewer sales than the forecast CREA published on July 15. Read against CREA’s own annual series in today’s workbook, no year since 2008 has come in that low. The cut is almost all volume. CREA’s 2026 average price forecast came down 0.7% on our arithmetic over the two vintages, and the national average is still forecast to edge higher in both years.
No year since 2008 has been this thin on CREA’s own series
CREA’s quarterly forecast workbook carries its annual national sales count back to 1980. Reading that series ourselves: every year from 2009 through 2025 came in above 444,530, and the last year below it was 2008, at 432,788. The series counts sales on Canadian MLS Systems, not every property transaction in Canada.
Per person the forecast is thinner still, and that calculation is ours. Set 444,530 against Statistics Canada’s July 1, 2026 population estimate of 41,798,407 and the rate is 10.6 sales per 1,000 people, the lowest since 1998, at 10.4. Between 1986 and 1998 the rate ran between 8.8 and 11.5 on the same two series, so 10.6 reads as a return to pre-2001 turnover rather than an aberration. It is not the lowest reading we can compute: CREA’s sales series starts in 1980 and the early 1980s run lower, 1982 at 6.1.
The cut landed on volume, not on price
The July figures below were read first-hand off CREA’s forecast page early this morning, before today’s update replaced them. CREA says the sales revision “reflects lower expected activity in the final four months of the year”.
| Forecast | July 15 | October 16 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 sales | 463,336 | 444,530 | −18,806 units, −4.1% |
| 2027 sales | 480,567 | 464,235 | −16,332 units, −3.4% |
| 2026 average price | $686,710 | $681,681 | −$5,029, −0.7% |
| 2027 average price | $694,164 | $689,909 | −$4,255, −0.6% |
Our arithmetic on CREA’s July and October 2026 forecast vintages.
On the new numbers the national average price rises 0.2% to $681,681 in 2026 and 1.2% to $689,909 in 2027. CREA calls the 2026 figure “slightly lower but largely unchanged from CREA’s July forecast”. CREA draws the line itself: “This forecast would mark the sixth and seventh consecutive years that the national average home price has hovered close to the $700,000 mark.”
CREA means that line as stability. In constant dollars, on our arithmetic, it has been a decline. Across those seven years the highest and lowest annual averages are both actual ones, 2022 at $711,942 and 2025 at $680,368, which is 4.4% lower in dollars of the day. Statistics Canada’s all-items Consumer Price Index for Canada rose 8.6% over those three years, from an annual average of 151.242 to 164.183, on our averaging of the monthly readings in table 18-10-0004-01, vector v41690973. Putting 2025’s average into 2022 dollars gives $626,739, which is 12.0% below the 2022 average.
CREA points at fixed mortgage rates
In CREA’s account, oil prices were rising again as of early September and, combined with “a notably more hawkish tone from the Bank of Canada, fixed mortgage rates have jumped even higher, and markets are now pricing in approximately 100 basis points of rate hikes by this time next year.” That figure is CREA’s characterisation of market pricing, not a forecast of ours. CREA says the shift “has already shown up in the form of lower home sales activity in September”, which this morning’s monthly release put at a 2.3% decline month over month, seasonally adjusted, with unadjusted activity 7.7% below September 2025.
The borrowing-cost half of that is the mechanism under this revision rather than a separate story: our piece on CREA’s September sales and the posted five-year mortgage rate rising for the first time since 2024.
Ontario and British Columbia are the only provinces forecast to see prices fall
Eight of the ten provinces are forecast to see average prices rise in 2026 even as volumes drop. The exceptions are British Columbia, at −0.8% on price with sales down 5.0%, and Ontario, at −3.0% on price with sales down 3.0%, which is the smallest forecast sales decline of any province alongside the largest forecast price decline. Alberta carries the steepest forecast sales decline of the ten, 9.0%, with average prices still forecast up 3.1%.
The national price increase is composition rather than prices, on our arithmetic over CREA’s provincial tables for the ten provinces. Ontario’s shallow sales decline leaves it with a larger share of 2026 transactions than it had in 2025, 35.6% against 34.9%, at a forecast average price of $809,334, the second highest in the country. Alberta’s share falls to 15.8% from 16.5%, at a forecast average of $529,033. Hold every province’s average price at its 2025 level and apply only the forecast shift in where transactions happen, and the national average rises about $2,750, or 0.4%. Apply the forecast provincial price changes at 2025 transaction shares instead, and it falls about $1,340, or 0.2%. CREA’s published national figure rises 0.2%. The increase comes from where the sales happen, not from provincial prices rising on balance.
The forecast assumes the Bank of Canada does less than markets are pricing
CREA states the condition plainly: “At present, this forecast assumes limited action by the Bank over the next year. The current consensus of interest rate forecasts is leaning towards the Bank hiking by less than markets have been pricing in.” If that assumption is wrong in the hawkish direction, the sales numbers above are the optimistic case.
The Bank of Canada policy rate was 2.25% and unchanged through October 14, 2026, and the next decision is Wednesday, October 28, alongside the Monetary Policy Report. Statistics Canada publishes the September Consumer Price Index on Monday, October 19, the next input into that risk. The two rate figures here sit on different horizons and are consistent: CREA’s approximately 100 basis points runs over the next twelve months, while our read of the rate path after the September jobs report, dated October 13, put about twenty basis points, roughly four-fifths of a quarter-point, in the price by the December 9 decision eight weeks out.
CREA’s 2027 rebound still lands below 2025
The 2027 line is a 4.4% increase to 464,235 sales, still 4,436 below 2025’s actual 468,671, or 0.9% below it on our arithmetic. The 2026 forecast is 24,141 sales below 2025, and two years of forecast do not return the market to where it was last year.
CREA says the 2027 figure “is predicated on slow but positive economic growth, the resumption of higher population growth, and more certainty for borrowers around the path for interest rates”. On Statistics Canada’s July 1 estimates, Canada added 1,139,889 people in the year to July 1, 2024, 446,389 in the year to 2025 and 189,425 in the year to 2026, which is 2.85%, then 1.08%, then 0.46%. CREA’s 2027 recovery requires that trend to turn.
The listed-company read here is on volume, and it runs through lenders. Resale transactions are not mortgage originations: renewals, refinancings, new construction and cash purchases all sit outside CREA’s count. But resale volume feeds the origination funnel, so 24,141 fewer transactions than 2025 is a thinner year of new lending to write, which is a growth input rather than a credit-quality input. Credit quality runs through rates and unemployment. Our ranked page on Canadian bank stocks works from the banks’ own reported figures.
What lands next
CREA’s next monthly statistics package is Tuesday, November 17, and its next quarterly forecast is due mid-January 2027. All of the above is a forecast published by a trade association, dated October 16, 2026, with population estimates running to July 1, 2026 and the policy rate as of October 14, 2026.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Every forecast figure for 2026 and 2027, every provincial sales and price change, and the annual sales and average price series back to 1980 are from the Canadian Real Estate Association’s quarterly forecast update ‘CREA Revises Resale Housing Market Forecast’, dateline Ottawa, ON October 16, 2026, and the Quarterly Forecasts workbook linked from the same page, both read first-hand. CREA’s July 15, 2026 forecast figures were read first-hand from that same page at 06:15 ET on October 16, 2026, before CREA replaced it with the October vintage; CREA keeps only the current vintage online. The September monthly figures are from CREA’s national statistics release of October 16, 2026. Canadian population figures are Statistics Canada estimates from table 17-10-0009-01, July 1 readings, and the Consumer Price Index figures are annual averages of the monthly all-items readings for Canada in table 18-10-0004-01, vector v41690973, both retrieved October 16, 2026. The comparisons against earlier years, the per-capita rates, the unit changes between the July and October vintages, the two provincial-mix counterfactuals, the constant-dollar price figures and the population growth rates are our arithmetic on those published series and are labelled as ours in the text. The provincial-mix figures cover the ten provinces, which is the breakdown CREA publishes. The target for the overnight rate is from the Bank of Canada and is as of October 14, 2026. The chart is drawn from the CREA workbook and the Statistics Canada population table.
