Live election results: Trump and Harris score early wins as vote-counting picks up in battleground states
Donald Trump won Florida on Tuesday for the third consecutive election, earning the state's 30 electoral votes, according to AP.
The Canadian Real Estate Association is downgrading its housing market forecast for the remainder of the year again, saying the Bank of Canada's interest rate cuts haven't spurred the gradual improvement it previously anticipated.
CREA said Tuesday it now thinks the national housing market will remain in "more of a holding pattern" until next spring with 468,900 properties forecast to trade hands this year.
That would mark a 5.2 per cent increase from 2023, down from its July prediction of a 6.1 per cent bump and its April outlook of 10.5 per cent.
The revised forecast came as CREA reported the latest national home sales and pricing data for September.
It said the average price of a home sold last month amounted to $669,630, up 2.1 per cent from September 2023. The association said it is now forecasting just a 0.9 per cent annual increase for 2024 to $683,200, down from its previous outlook of a 2.5 per cent annual increase.
On a year-over-year basis, the number of homes that changed hands in September rose 6.9 per cent, but CREA said sales ticked up just 1.9 per cent month-over-month from August after the Bank of Canada's third straight rate cut.
Toronto-based real estate agent Davelle Morrison called it somewhat surprising that buyers "aren't jumping in with both feet yet."
"I'm certainly living that with my clients in terms of trying to sell their condos for them. It's certainly taking a little bit longer than one would like," said Morrison, a broker with Bosley Real Estate Ltd.
"It would be one thing if we had lots of buyers and multiple offers and lots of showings, but the buyers are just taking their time."
There were 185,427 properties listed for sale across Canada at the end of September, up 16.8 per cent from a year earlier but still below historical averages of around 200,000 for this time of the year.
New listings grew 4.9 per cent month-over-month in September due to broad-based gains across most of the country’s biggest markets.
The association said a "sharper rebound" is expected by next spring.
“Sales gains are now three for three in the months following interest rate cuts, which is a trend even though the increases weren’t headline-grabbing,” said CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart in a press release.
“That said, with the pace of rate cuts now expected to be much faster than previously thought, it’s possible some buyers may choose to hold off on a purchase for now. This could further boost the rebound expected in 2025 at the expense of the last few months of this year.”
The Bank of Canada began its rate-lowering process in June and has cut its key rate by a quarter-percentage point a total of three times so far this year, bringing it to 4.25 per cent.
The central bank faces its next interest rate decision on Oct. 23. Governor Tiff Macklem has said it is reasonable to expect more cuts are coming given recent progress made on lowering inflation.
With expectations of more aggressive easing, including a potential half-percentage point cut, Canadians "could be presented with mortgage rates by next spring that start to make things make more sense," said BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic in a note.
"All told, the resale housing market still hasn't responded meaningfully to early Bank of Canada rate cuts, which was entirely expected," he said.
"We're moving further down the rate-relief path, but it's still going to take more to get the market moving again."
CREA said Tuesday it anticipates national home sales will climb 6.6 per cent in 2025 as interest rates continue to decline and spark renewed demand, while average home prices are forecast to rise 4.4 per cent to $713,375 next year.
Morrison said that while lower interest rates are sure to lead to higher prices in the market, she suspects buyers may prove to be more cautious than in years past.
"I feel like they're not drunk on money anymore. I think that this (economic environment) has kind of taught them something ... and now they're trying to protect themselves for what may or may not happen later," she said.
"So I'm not sure that we're going to go back to the good old days where people are going crazy and throwing money at the housing market."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2024.
Donald Trump won Florida on Tuesday for the third consecutive election, earning the state's 30 electoral votes, according to AP.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris notched early wins in reliably Republican and Democratic states, respectively, as a divided America made its decision in a stark choice for the nation's future Tuesday.
Outlets across the United States have been crunching numbers, parsing polls and working their magic models to predict the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election.
Exit polls are a set of surveys that ask voters whom they voted for, as well as additional questions about their political opinions, the factors they considered in the election and their own backgrounds more broadly.
These swing states will most likely determine the path to the presidency, with candidates needing to win some combination of votes to get them across the 270 mark to secure a majority.
Hoax bomb threats, many of which appeared to originate from Russian email domains, were directed on Tuesday at polling locations in four battleground states - Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin - as U.S. election day voting was underway, the FBI said.
Tropical Storm Rafael strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane on Tuesday as it swirled past Jamaica and chugged toward western Cuba.
Police have released video footage that appears to show a suspect shooting a man who had attempted to intervene in a home invasion in York Region on Monday night.
The Canadian government says it has raised concerns directly with Russian officials after media reports this week revealed an alleged Russian sabotage operation. The alleged plot included plans to send parcels packed with incendiary devices aboard aircraft destined for Canada and the United States.
Ten-thousand hand-knit poppies were taken from the Sanctuary Arts Centre and displayed on the fence surrounding the Dartmouth Cenotaph on Monday.
A Vancouver man is saying goodbye to his nine-to-five and embarking on a road trip from the Canadian Arctic to Antarctica.
A Windsor teen’s social media post showing off a distinctive Windsor pizza topping has gone viral, drawing millions of views worldwide and sparking new curiosity about Windsor-style pizza.
Auston Matthews has come face to face with his look-alike. On Thursday, the Maple Leafs star met seven-year-old Grayson Joseph, who went viral for dressing up as an Auston Matthews hockey card.
A Halifax junk remover shares some of his company’s strangest discoveries.
When Leah arrived at work directing traffic around a construction site, she never expected to see a van painted in all sorts of bright colours, and covered in eclectic decorations, including a stuffed moose attached to its roof.
After 14 years of repairing and selling bicycles out of the garage of her home, a Guelph, Ont. woman’s efforts have ended – for now, at least.
Epcor says it has removed more than 20,000 goldfish from an Edmonton stormwater pond.
Witches and warlocks have been flocking to New Brunswick waterways this month, as a new Halloween tradition ripples across the province.