My Real Estate Blog - Market Trends, Tips & Updates

In February, the Teranet–National Bank National Composite House Price Index™ was up 0.6% from the previous month, the largest increase for a February since the recession. Though prices were up on the month in six of the 11 metropolitan markets surveyed, the gain of the composite index came entirely from a 3.2% jump in the Vancouver market, where the Real Estate Board reported the highest-selling February on record. In the other 10 markets, rises and declines essentially cancelled each other out. Prices were up 0.9% in Victoria, 0.7% in Quebec City, 0.2% in Toronto and 0.1% in Winnipeg and Edmonton. Prices were down 0.4% in Hamilton and in Ottawa-Gatineau, 0.9% in Calgary, 1.2% in Montreal and 2.9% in Halifax. For Vancouver it was the 14th consecutive month without a decline, for Victoria the sixth. For Ottawa-Gatineau it was the sixth consecutive monthly deflation, for Montreal the third.

The price jump in Vancouver pushed the February composite index to a 12-month rise of 6.5%, the largest since January 2012. The 12-month change has been kept positive by four markets where gains are well above the countrywide average – Vancouver (+14.5%), Hamilton (+9.5%) and Toronto and Victoria (+9.0%). February prices were little higher than a year earlier in Winnipeg (+1.3%) and Quebec City (+0.9%). Prices were down from a year earlier in Montreal (−0.2%), in Halifax and Ottawa-Gatineau (−0.3%), in Edmonton (−1.0%) and in Calgary (−3.3%).