After a spring that never quite got going, the Canadian housing market found a gear in May.
Home sales across Canadian MLS® Systems rose 5.5% from April, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) — the first month in 2026 to post any meaningful upward momentum in headline demand.
Where that momentum came from is the interesting part. "The national sales increase from April to May was broad-based but driven disproportionately by Ontario, suggesting the HST rebate on new builds may have only briefly drawn the attention of buyers away from the existing home market," said Shaun Cathcart, CREA's Senior Economist.
The monthly jump doesn't erase the year's softer trend — actual sales were still 5.1% below May 2025 — but the supporting numbers point in a more encouraging direction. New listings slipped 1% month-over-month, which, paired with stronger sales, tightened the national sales-to-new listings ratio to 49.2% from 46.2% in April. Inventory fell to 4.8 months at the end of May, down from 5.1 months through February, March, and April, and within shouting distance of the long-term average of five.
Prices, meanwhile, have stopped sliding.
The National Composite MLS® Home Price Index edged down just 0.1% from April and was off 4.1% year-over-year — the smallest annual decline so far in 2026. Cathcart said prices "have largely stabilized following some softness earlier in the year."
Regionally, values are still down from a year ago in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, with gains elsewhere helping to offset them.
The headline number, though, belongs to the average. At $702,079, the non-seasonally adjusted national average home price was up 1.5% year-over-year — its highest level in two years, and the first time it has cleared $700,000 in 23 months.
Whether the momentum holds is the open question, and the timing is favourable. "The handoff from May into June is typically the busiest time of the year, so we now have a strengthening market happening at the most active time of the year," said Garry Bhaura, CREA Chair.
For anyone who has spent 2026 waiting for a signal, this might be the closest we've gotten to it.
