![\"canadian-housing-market\"](\"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/canadian-housing-market.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo:\u00a0Tierra Mallorca<\/a>\/Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nA surprisingly strong showing from the Canadian housing market in June is leading economists to swiftly revise their forecasts as homebuyers returned to the market in larger than anticipated numbers.<\/p>\n
June market data published last week<\/a> by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) showed country-wide home sales up 63 percent over May and more than 15 percent compared to the same period last year. Home price growth also came roaring back, almost completely erasing the losses suffered through the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n The performance was so strong it led Capital Economics\u2019 Stephen Brown to revise his home price forecast upward to 3 percent in 2021 and 5 percent in 2022. By the end of 2022, he now predicts that prices will have risen by 8 percent from their current levels.<\/p>\n In a research brief published late last week, Brown wrote that the June figures had \u201cmade a mockery of the near-unanimous view among economists that [Canadian] house prices would fall this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, economists projecting varying degrees of home price declines<\/a> were a staple of media reporting on the pandemic\u2019s housing market impacts since the crisis began. Oxford Economics predicted a nine percent fall by early 2021 just a month ago. Earlier on, RBC forecast a seven percent decline by mid-2021, while National Bank of Canada pegged the drop to be close to 10 percent.<\/p>\n