Posthaste: Canadian real estate could be poised for a rebound

For those waiting on the sidelines of Canada’s real estate market, now might be the Goldilocks window to jump in before things start heating up again.

Home sales are expected to be subdued for the remainder of the year, with “modest acceleration in price growth” in 2027, according to a mid-year outlook from Toronto-Dominion Bank.

This comes as home prices have fallen in Canada’s major cities for much of this year. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board reported last week that home prices were down 5.4 per cent in June compared to last year, with the benchmark home price falling to $940,800.

Prices in British Columbia fell 1.2 per cent in May to an average of $947,859, according to data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).

TD predicts Ontario and B.C. will experience sales growth in the second half of the year, though it is primarily a rebound from a weaker-than-expected first half.

“Price expectations between sellers and buyers may also be becoming more aligned, greasing the wheels for transactions and supporting an improving trend in activity,” the report said. “Looking ahead to next year, recent affordability improvements should support rising sales activity. Still, sales levels are likely to trail their 10-year averages in both markets by a comfortable margin.”

TD expects prices to turn positive in both provinces in 2027, while B.C. may be on an even quicker timeline due to outperforming luxury home sales.

Overall, CREA reports prices across the country climbed 1.5 per cent in the month, up to an average of $702,079.

Meanwhile, TD expects prices on a national level to fall 0.3 per cent this year.

“Even though sales growth is likely to be positive, the level of sales should remain low,” the report said. “In fact, our forecast sees sales taking until (the second half of 2027) to approach their pre-pandemic level, restrained by weak population growth and modest hiring activity over the projection horizon.”

In Alberta, a real estate hot spot over the past few years, prices are up 2.5 per cent to date in 2026, but TD only expects a “modest gain” for the rest of the year, a downgrade from prior projections.

Sign up here to get Posthaste delivered straight to your inbox.

As markets grow uneasy with AI investing, prices are starting to come down.

The Silicon Data LLM Token Expenditure Index, which tracks what users pay for AI tokens, is down about 20 per cent since May.

For investors, the drop could be a warning that AI companies are losing pricing power among conscious customers.

“There are increasing reports that users of AI solutions, priced in tokens, are having to restrain unlimited use due to high costs,” veteran investor Louis Navellier told Bloomberg News. “The chatter that OpenAI is pushing back its IPO to next year is seen as a sign that, currently, profitability remains a problem.”