Vancouver home prices the highest in monthly gain for February

Home prices in Vancouver went up in February according to data from the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index (HPI), which calculates price changes for repeated home sales. Only three out of the eleven large city markets surveyed increased month-to-month, with Vancouver at the highest across Canada (1.5%), followed by Victoria (0.5%), and Hamilton (0.3%). This resulted in a national monthly HPI increase of 0.1%.

The year-over-year figures placed Vancouver’s gain at third highest (5.7%) after Hamilton (8%) and Toronto (7.3%). The national yearly HPI increase was 4.4% in February, which is a decrease from 4.7% in January.

Decelerating Home Growth

Economic analyst at TD Economics, Admir Kolaj, stated that this is the fourth consecutive month of decelerating home price growth. He also pointed out that there is a growing regional divide between the oil producing and non-oil producing regions. The HPI decrease in Calgary (0.3%) and Edmonton (0.8%) was higher than that in Toronto (0.1%).

Kolaj predicts that home price growth will remain more favourable elsewhere in Canada due to the low Canadian dollar and lower-for-longer interest rates.