Canadian home sales fell 1.3% in February, CREA says

OTTAWA, March 17 (Reuters) - ‌Canadian home ​sales ​fell 1.3% in February from January and prices declined in continuation of a ‌trend that started early this year, data from ⁠the Canadian Real Estate Association showed on Wednesday, although ‌it added there were ‌some signs of a pick-up in activity around the end of the month.

New listings dropped ​on a monthly basis in February but were not enough to boost the sales-to-new listings ratio ⁠which stayed well below the long-term average, data showed.

KEY DETAILS

* Home ​sales edged down 1.3% month-over-month in February,after falling by 5.8% in January * Sales were ​down 8.1% on an annual ‌basis, without seasonaladjustment * The industry group's Home Price Index fell 0.6% on ⁠themonth and was down 4.8% year-over-year * Newly listed properties declined by 3.9% month-over-month,while the sales-to-new listings ratio slightly ⁠narrowed to 47.6%from 46.4% in January * “2026 is still ultimately ​expected to be a story aboutpent-up first-time buyer demand finally seeing a chance to enterthe market. They’ve had to ‌wait a long time for mortgage ratesto find a bottom, but some will ‌no doubt continue to hold offfor a bottom ⁠in prices in ‌some Ontario and ​British Columbiamarkets,” CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart said.

(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; Editing by Chizu ‌Nomiyama )

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