Growth in home prices slowest since 2009

Report shows homes in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton lost value over the past year

Growth in home prices over the past year were the slowest since November 2009, according to the Teranet-National Bank House Price Index (HPI) report, released Tuesday.

From July 2018 to July 2019, the HPI increased by a below-inflation rate of 0.4% nationwide, with the biggest year-over-year declines coming from Vancouver (-6.2%), Calgary (-3.1%) and Edmonton (-2.8%).

Other Western cities—such as Victoria and Winnipeg—saw their indices increase by 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively.

The report described the annual index growth in most of the six regions in Central and Eastern Canada as “decent,” pointing to Ottawa-Gatineau (+6.0%), Montreal (+5.8%), Hamilton (+5.1%), Toronto (+3.2%) and Halifax (+3.1%).

On a month-over-month basis, the index rose in 10 of the 11 markets mentioned in the report: Winnipeg (+2.9%), Ottawa-Gatineau (+2.0%), Montreal (+1.7%),  Halifax (+1.6%), Hamilton (+1.3%), Toronto (+1.3%), Calgary (+0.7%), Victoria (+0.6%), Edmonton (+0.5%), and Quebec City (+0.1%). The HPI was down by 1% in Vancouver, month-over-month.