According to statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), national home sales posted their third monthly increase and broke all previous monthly records.

Highlights:

• National home sales rose by 1.5% from February to March.
• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was up 12.2% compared to March 2015.
• The number of newly listed homes fell by 1.4% from February to March.
• The MLS^® Home Price Index (HPI) rose 9.1% year-over-year in March.
• The national average sale price rose 15.7% on a year-over-year basis in March (net of Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto,...

The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a record 12,560 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in March, up 38 per cent from March of last year. Home sales last month eclipsed the previous record of 11,683 unit sales in May of 2007. Total sales dollar volume was $9.69 billion in March, up 66.9 per cent compared to the previous year. The average MLS® residential price in the province was up 20.2 per cent year-over-year, to $771,620.

“Housing demand has never been stronger in the province,” said Cameron Muir, BCREA...

Metro Vancouver* home sales eclipsed 5,000 in March for the first time on record.

Residential property sales in the region totalled 5,173 in March 2016, an increase of 27.4 per cent from the 4,060 sales recorded in March 2015 and an increase of 24 per cent compared to February 2016 when 4,172 homes sold.

Last month’s sales were 56 per cent above the 10-year sales average for the month.

"March was the highest selling month the REBGV has ever recorded,” Dan Morrison, REBGV president said. “Today's demand is broad based. Home buyers are active in neighbourhoods...

The trend measure of housing starts in Canada was 196,783 units in March compared to 201,618 in February, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts.

“Overall, starts were trending lower in March due to a slowdown in multi-unit construction,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC Chief Economist. “This was the case across the country, except in British Columbia where declining inventories of new and unsold units as well as low levels...

The topic of foreign ownership in Canada’s housing markets continues to gain in importance and attention. In line with its commitment to sharing insightful information as it becomes available, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released today its latest Housing Market Insights (HMI) report on this topic.

The report looks at the share of foreign ownership by the age of structure and is meant to be read in tandem with CMHC’s fall 2015 HMI report on Foreign Ownership. Findings reveal that share of foreign ownership is most prominent in new condominium apartment...

Condominium investors in Vancouver and Toronto display stable characteristics over time. Most are small-scale investors that own only one secondary unit, nearly onehalf purchased their last secondary unit for rental income and most expect to own their investment property for more than five years, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) 2015 Condominium Owners Survey (COS) released today.

The annual report, focused on the Vancouver and Toronto Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs), includes survey insights on what motivates condo purchases, how...