In January the Teranet–National Bank National Composite House Price Index™ was down 0.1% from the previous month, a second consecutive monthly decrease. A January decline has happened only three times in 17 years. For the first time in 11 months, prices were down on the month in seven of the 11 metropolitan markets surveyed: Montreal (−1.2%), Ottawa-Gatineau (−1.0%), Calgary (−0.7%), Edmonton (−0.5%), Quebec City (−0.4%), Toronto (−0.2%) and Halifax (−0.1%). For Ottawa-Gatineau it was the fifth consecutive monthly decline (cumulative −4.7%), for Calgary the fourth (cumulative −4.4%), for Edmonton the third (cumulative −1.7%). For Toronto it was the first monthly decline in 11 months. Prices were up in January in Hamilton (+1.0%) Vancouver (+0.9%), Victoria (+0.7%) and Winnipeg (+0.3%). For Vancouver it was the 13th consecutive month without a decline, for Victoria the fifth.
In January the composite index was up 5.9% from a year earlier – a quite respectable gain, of course, though the smallest in three months. However, the strength came from just four markets whose 12-month gains were well above the countrywide average – Vancouver (12.5%), Hamilton (10.3%), Toronto (8.6%) and Victoria (8.5%). In Quebec City (+0.1%), Winnipeg (+0.2%) and Montreal (+0.8%), prices were barely higher than a year earlier. In Halifax they were 2.0% higher. Prices were down from a year earlier in Calgary (−2.6%), Ottawa-Gatineau (−2.0%) and Edmonton (−1.9%).
