Rental construction in Canada just hit its highest level in years, while condo construction fell to some of its lowest, according to CMHC. Canada's 2025 housing starts rose 6% annually, "driven by record rental apartment construction," per CMHC's Spring 2026 Housing Supply Report, even as the report describes condo presales as having "collapsed" nationally.

That shift sits alongside a separate, recent slowdown. In July 2026, housing starts fell 5% month-over-month to 229,074 units, with multi-unit starts down 21% year-over-year. The pace of building has cooled this summer, even as the mix tilts toward rentals.

Several cities are leading the rental surge. Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Halifax, and Montreal all posted record-high rental starts in 2025,…

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Why are more Canadians choosing variable mortgages? Because for the first time since 2022, going variable is both cheaper and increasingly the default. Variable-rate mortgages now make up 36% of all mortgages outstanding, while 5-year fixed has slipped to 20%, per the Bank of Canada.

The reversal is sharper in new lending. CMHC reports variable reached 42% of newly extended loans at chartered banks by February 2026, against 11% fixed. The driver: variable rates fell below fixed in late 2025 for the first time in years. As of September 3, 2026, average fixed sits at 4.62% versus 3.95% variable, while the Bank of Canada holds at 2.25%.

But the national number can't tell you how much this matters to your household: that depends on your mortgage size.…

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Why is there a housing shortage in Canada right now? It has more to do with the new construction pipeline than the high cost of home ownership in Canada. Homeowner housing starts have dropped to their lowest level in more than 25 years, a steeper decline than what followed the 2008 financial crisis.

National price data doesn’t expose this. The average home in Canada sold for $674,819 in July 2026, up a slim 0.2% year-over-year, and CREA's benchmark index was down 3.3%, its smallest yearly drop in nearly a year, while sales rose for a fourth straight month. Look past those numbers, though, and the shortage is on the supply side: CMHC reports homeowner starts fell to a seasonally adjusted 229,074 units in July, down 5% month-over-month and the slowest…

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The most recent Trade War between the current US Government and Canada has greater impact than just higher prices at the register for certain goods. Tariffs reach housing through a chain, not a straight line: trade exposure hits specific industries, industries hit local employment, employment hits buyer and seller confidence, and confidence eventually hits housing demand. That chain is what helps you read any future tariff development, not just this one.

The first link is trade exposure. Statistics Canada's estimated average effective tariff rate captures how much of a province's trade is subject to new tariffs, and it varies enormously: roughly 12% in Quebec, 10% in B.C., 9.6% in Ontario, versus 0.5% in Alberta and 0.2% in Newfoundland and…

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Short answer: probably not this summer. A year-end hike, though, is now a real possibility. Headline CPI jumped to 3.2% year-over-year in May 2026, up from 2.8% in April, largely because gasoline prices surged 33.2% following energy supply disruptions tied to the Iran conflict (Statistics Canada; CBC News). Sounds alarming. But core inflation, the number the Bank of Canada actually watches most closely and the measure that strips out volatile energy and food prices, held steadier at 2.1%.

So is this a red flag or a blip? It depends on whether rising producer prices, which have historically led consumer prices by a quarter or two, keep pushing that core CPI number higher over the coming months. Statistics Canada notes roughly 40% of Canadian businesses…

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If you're a homeowner worried about your real estate equity and you live in Quebec City, Winnipeg or Regina. Relax, you're doing just fine. Better than fine, in some cases.

Home Prices Across Canada

Canada's National Composite MLS® HPI fell 4.1% year-over-year in May 2026, actually the smallest annual benchmark decline recorded so far this year (CREA). Sounds like a broad, mild slowdown. Its not evenly spread at all.

CREA specifically confirmed that benchmark prices remain down year-over-year in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, while gains in other provinces are offsetting those losses nationally. So why are Toronto house prices falling while other cities climb? It comes down to these markets correcting harder from a much higher…

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The Toronto and Vancouver markets are still correcting from their pandemic-era peaks. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is rolling along like normal, better than normal, in some cases.

The Toronto and Vancouver House Price Reality

Housing starts are down 11% year-over-year in Toronto and 1% in Vancouver, a sign that even new construction supply has pulled back in response to the correction. British Columbia remains the most buyer-friendly provincial market nationally at 6.7 months of inventory as of May 2026 (WOWA.ca), and days on market have stretched considerably across both Greater Toronto Area communities and Vancouver neighbourhoods.

And yet Greater Vancouver's average price still edged up 2.1% month-over-month to $1,235,658. Why are…

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As of Q1 2026, only three provinces in the entire country can say births still outnumber deaths. Canada recorded 90,173 births against 90,328 deaths in Q1 2026, a shortfall of 155 people and the fifth quarterly natural decrease on record (Statistics Canada). That national figure flattens a lot of very different local stories. Some provinces are still growing organically. Others are watching deaths outpace births by the hundreds, even thousands. Here's the province-by-province breakdown.

Growing Organically: Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan

Ontario (+1,019), Manitoba (+485), and Saskatchewan (+446) were the only three provinces with positive natural increase in Q1 2026 (Statistics Canada). That organic household formation, stacked on top of…

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Is it still a buyer’s market in Canadian real estate? Not really. Not nationally, anyway. Months of inventory sat at 4.8 in May 2026, right in balanced territory and nowhere near the 6.4 months that signals a genuine buyer's market. Here's what's actually going on underneath that number.

The National Data Doesn't Tell You Much

About 200,000 homes were listed for sale across Canada at the end of May 2026, unchanged from a year earlier (CREA). Sounds like nothing changed. Its actually a fairly significant shift. Back in November 2025, active listings were still climbing 8.5% year-over-year, the kind of inventory growth that gave buyers real negotiating leverage.

That growth has essentially stopped. The Canadian housing inventory expansion that…

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Canada just did something it's never done before: its population shrank. Buried inside that headline is a bigger story. One province is booming while the two largest are losing residents fast. Here's what that means for housing, market by market.

The National Number Doesn't Tell You Much

Canada's population fell 0.25% in Q1 2026, that's 103,500 people, following the country's first-ever annual decline in 2025 (Statistics Canada). Easy to read that as "the whole country is slowing down." Not quite right, though. That national figure is an average of some very different local realities, and it's the local realities that actually move housing markets, benchmark prices, active listing counts, and days on market. This is the first post in a series…

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