Page 23 - REN_May-June 2021

Could 2021 be a Busier Year for

Canadian Real Estate than 2020?

Michelle McNally courtesy Realtor.ca
N ow that we’ve made it through the first couple months of 2021, we can already see how the new year’s housing
market is shaping up compared to 2020.
Despite plunging sales in the spring of 2020 and unprecedented challenges brought on by the COVID-19
pandemic, Canada’s housing market showed remarkable strength in 2020, making it the best-performing year on
record.
With the first quarter of 2021 wrapped up, signs are pointing to a continuation of the strong housing market
conditions experienced in 2020’s second half. The latest forecast from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA)
predicts that 701,000 properties will trade hands across MLS systems in 2021, while the national average home price
will rise 16.5% annually to just over $665,000.
Davelle Morrison, a Toronto-based real estate broker and REALTOR® with Bosley Real Estate, anticipates 2021 will be
another active year for the market. Buyers who didn’t move last year and now find themselves working, schooling,
and exercising from home will likely crave a change of scenery after experiencing another round of winter lockdowns.
“The people who didn’t make changes at that point, once they had to go into lockdown again, [they] were like, ‘Ok,
you know what, we didn’t make a change the first time around, but now we really have to make a change,’” said
Morrison.
Morrison and Adil Dinani, founder and principal of the Vancouver-based Dinani Group Real Estate Advisors at Royal
LePage West Real Estate Services, share their insights on what 2021 trends home buyers and sellers could see that
will keep the market moving forward.
What happened in 2020?

The 2020 housing market was a year unlike any other in history. As the pandemic triggered lockdowns across the
country in the second half of March, the normally busy spring season began to crumble. National home sales dropped
by 56.8% in April for the lowest sales total recorded since 1984, according to CREA.

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