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<\/a><\/p>\nPhoto: James Bombales<\/em><\/p>\n National home sales crept up 0.9 per cent month-over-month in August, part of the Canadian housing market\u2019s current warming phase, which began earlier this summer.<\/p>\n While the sales bump is a welcome change from the slumping activity that characterized the first quarter of the year, it\u2019s still nowhere near the record breaking numbers seen in the spring of 2017. But according to one economist, the market could return to its former heights.<\/p>\n\n \u201cCanada\u2019s housing market has gone through a period of unusual weakness over the past year, driven by a mix of higher [interest] rates…and natural affordability barriers,\u201d writes RBC Global Asset Management chief economist Eric Lascelles, in his most recent MacroMemo.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question has been whether this softness was the \u201cbig one\u201d \u2013 the beginning of the end of the country\u2019s decade-long housing boom, or instead a mere recalibration in response to less friendly housing parameters,\u201d Lascelles continues. \u201cSo far, the tentative evidence suggests the latter.\u201d <\/p>\n He notes that home resales and prices have rebounded in recent months, though the rate of growth it still \u201cstarkly lower\u201d than it was in the spring of 2017. <\/p>\n