Don’t worry about what the rest of the world is doing – if you’re Canadian and you’re selling your house right now, you’re likely to get top dollar for it, according to a recent report from the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index. As of July 2011, resale home prices rose on the Index to 146.51, the highest it’s ever been. But what does that mean exactly?
The Index tracks single-dwelling detached home prices over a six-month period in six of Canada’s biggest cities: Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Halifax. In July, the Index sat 1.3% higher than it did in June, and it was the fourth month in the row that the Index saw such an increase. The majority of the cities studied saw increases, as shown in the graph above with:
- Calgary increasing 2.3% in their home sales prices,
- Toronto increasing 1.7%,
- Ottawa increasing 1%,
- Vancouver increasing 0.9%, and
- Montreal increasing 0.5%
The only city that dropped some on the Index was Halifax, which fell 0.9%.
What’s even better for these cities, and even more encouraging for homeowners looking to sell within them, is that not only are they increasing their home sales prices, but the increase is also an all-time high for most cities, with the exception of Calgary, who reached their peak in 2007 and still have yet to get back to where they were.
Overall for the year, home prices were up a grand total of 5.3% on the Index; and the city to see the highest increase during that time is, maybe not surprisingly, Vancouver. This city, known for its highly-priced homes, rose a total of 8.5% over the course of 12 months.
Good news in July, sure and definitely good news for the year overall. And with homeowners and home buyers getting such great deals on both fixed and variable mortgages right now, that good outlook doesn’t look like it’s going to dim anytime soon.
