Canadian home resales were up slightly in September, but prices remained at similar levels to last year, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Friday.
Seasonally-adjusted sales of homes were up three per cent in September over August, the second consecutive monthly increase, the CREA said.
But national prices changed little from last year, at an average sale of $331,089. That's down from May's high of $346,881.
"Supply and demand are rebalancing, and that's keeping prices steady in many markets," Georges Pahud, CREA's president, said.
New listings remained close to August's numbers, but were down 15 per cent from April. It would take an estimated 6.6 months to sell all the homes available in September at the current pace. That is down from 6.9 months in August and 7.2 in July.
Year-over-year sales were down 18.9 per cent, but that was because September 2009 was a record month, the CREA said. September 2010 had similar sales numbers to the same month in 2008, 2007 and 2006.
Mortgage rates remain at record lows but economic fears will likely keep the market flat for the rest of the year, analysts say.
Recent numbers from Statistics Canada said that the price of building a new home inched up in August by 0.1 per cent.
The greatest rise in new home prices was out of Ontario, particularly, Hamilton and Windsor.
