Saturday, May 29, 2010

Teranet HPI for March 2010

Monthly price rise of 0.3% in March

Canadian home prices in March were up 11.6% from a year earlier, according to the Teranet-National Bank National Composite House Price Index™. This acceleration from 12-month rises of 7.5% in January and 9.9% in February is attributable to the deflation that was in progress 12 months earlier. This base effect will continue through the results for April, the anniversary of the index bottom. The composite index in March was up 11.7% from that bottom. However, this gain is strongly influenced by Toronto, up 16.3% from April 2009, and Vancouver, up 14.4% from May 2009. In the four other markets surveyed, the rise from the respective troughs is less than 9%.

Month-over-month increases have recently decelerated considerably. The February and March gains of the composite index, at 0.2% and 0.3%, were the smallest in the 11 months since it began reflating. Contributing to the deceleration was a string of three consecutive monthly declines in Calgary, where March prices were down 0.3% from the month before.

Teranet – National Bank National Composite House Price Index™

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Toronto prices were flat in March. Prices were up 0.1% in Ottawa, 0.6% in Montreal and Vancouver and 1.4% in Halifax. The broad slowing of monthly gains is consistent with a general loosening of resale-market conditions across the country. For some months now, homes have been coming on the market faster than they have been selling.

Of the six metropolitan markets surveyed, Calgary remains the only one that has yet to top its pre-recession high. Its prices are down 10.3% from their peak of August 2007.

Teranet – National Bank House Price Index™

The historical data of the Teranet – National Bank House Price Index™ is available at www.housepriceindex.ca.

Metropolitan areaIndex level
March 2010
% change m/m% change y/yFrom troughTrough Date
Calgary157.17-0.3 %2.7 %6.0%June 2009
Halifax124.991.4 %5.8 %6.9%February 2009
Montreal129.220.6 %7.1 %7.2%February 2009
Ottawa122.040.1 %7.9 %8.5%April 2009
Toronto120.940.0 %15.5 %16.3%April 2009
Vancouver152.160.6 %14.4 %14.8%May 2009
National Composite133.470.3 %11.6 %12.0%April 2009

The Teranet–National Bank House Price Index™ is estimated by tracking observed or registered home prices over time using data collected from public land registries. All dwellings that have been sold at least twice are considered in the calculation of the index. This is known as the repeat sales method; a complete description of the method is given at www.housepriceindex.ca

The Teranet–National Bank House Price Index™ is an independently developed representation of average home price changes in six metropolitan areas: Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax. The national composite index is the weighted average of the six metropolitan areas. The weights are based on aggregate value of dwellings as retrieved from the 2006 Statistics Canada Census. According to that census1, the aggregate value of occupied dwellings in the metropolitan areas covered by the indices was $1.168 trillion, or 53% of the Canadian aggregate value of $2.207 trillion.

All indices have a base value of 100 in June 2005. For example, an index value of 130 means that home prices have increased 30% since June 2005.

By:

Marc Pinsonneault
Senior Economist
Economy & Strategy Group
National Bank Financial Group

Teranet - National Bank House Price Index™ thanks the author for their special collaboration on this report.

1 Value of Dwelling for the Owner-occupied Non-farm, Non-reserve Private Dwellings of Canada.

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