The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in July were down compared with a year ago, but edged slightly higher month-over-month.

By Daniel Johnson

The organization said Tuesday home sales last month totalled 43,578, down 5.3% from the previous year.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, activity was up 0.5% compared with June this year.

“The overall takeaway at the national level is modestly positive; sales are up a little bit more. It’s four in a row now, three of them not so big, but it makes July the highest seasonally adjusted level of demand so far this year,” said CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart in an interview.

He said the market is moving “modestly in the right direction,”and that local markets that were too hot or too cold are moving toward balance. For example, Cathcart said Ontario was a buyer’s market six months ago, but is now already halfway back to normal levels.

CREA said that Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador are still borderline sellers’ markets, but that other provinces have seen inventory converging toward long-term averages in recent months.

“Notably, even Ontario’s months of inventory measure was only about a half standard deviation above average in July after having been in a buyers’ market condition for the first four months of 2026,” the report said.

TD economist Rishi Sondhi said in a note Tuesday that over the past four months, “national sales gains have been almost exclusively driven by Ontario, where improved affordability — amid healthy supply and low sales levels — is gradually drawing buyers off the sidelines.”

The national average sale price of a home sold in July was $674,819, up 0.2% on a year-over-year basis. Regionally, prices fell on a year-over-year basis in Ontario and B.C., while all other regions saw gains.

CREA’s home price index, which aims to represent the sale of typical homes, edged 0.1% higher month-over-month. The index was down 3.3% on a year-over-year basis.

Phil Soper, president and CEO of Royal LePage, said in an interview that Canada’s real estate market is not taking off, but it is “healing.”

“We’re seeing the major markets and most expensive markets reflect the kind of activity we’ve seen in more affordable markets earlier in the year. That is balanced territory with sales volumes picking up,” he said.

Soper said there has been a national divide in Canada’s housing market that is gradually easing, “but there’s clearly a divide between expensive markets and affordable markets, and the affordable markets continue to do better.”

CREA says new listings in July were down 1.6% month-over-month, marking the third consecutive drop.

There were 205,388 properties listed for sale across Canada at the end of July, up 0.6% from the previous year and just 1.5% higher than the long-term average.

Looking ahead, Cathcart said it will be important to see what happens in the fall.

“A lot of the inventory that’s hanging around in the summer right now is stuff that didn’t sell earlier. It’s not super exciting, it’s been around, but there’s usually another big burst of exciting new stuff right after Labour Day,” he said.

“If the buyers are there and eager, you’re going to see those numbers pop up in October, November.”

This article was written and reposted from Canadian Mortgage Trends.

The tentative trade deal between the U.S. and Canada would lower tariffs on certain Canadian exports of steel and aluminum to 25%, according to people familiar with the matter.

Steel can liners on the production line at the Ideal Can manufacturing facility in Saint-Apollinaire, Quebec, Canada, on Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. Ideal Can Inc. manufactures 3-piece steel food cans as well as industrial and aerosol cans.

By Josh Wingrove, Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Alicia Diaz

(Bloomberg) — The tentative trade deal between the U.S. and Canada would lower tariffs on certain Canadian exports of steel and aluminum to 25%, according to people familiar with the matter.

The details have yet to be finalized and are not expected to apply across the board. Different rates could apply to some derivative products that include those metals, said some of the people, who requested anonymity to discuss terms of the agreement before it is announced.

Talks between U.S. and Canadian trade advisers continued Wednesday, less than 24 hours after U.S. President Donald Trump paused planned 50% levies on billions of dollars of Canadian goods to allow more time to negotiate. The planned changes to the metals tariffs could help unlock a lasting deal to avert the broader duties before a Friday deadline.

Trump in the past has demanded changes to trade agreements or spiked them entirely at the last minute.

“We’re looking at that,” Trump said Wednesday when asked if he would reduce tariffs on Canadian metals. “We may bring some of the tariffs down to a level where other countries are because Canada was paying a higher tariff.”

The planned changes revealed Wednesday underscore how in addition to averting a new, broad tariff, Canada is also poised to win some relief from existing duties that have been an irritant in the relationship with the U.S.

The move on steel and aluminum under discussion would generally halve U.S. tariffs on imports of the two metals, which currently face a 50% rate. The countries are also discussing exclusions and other measures that would change the scope of the levies, some of the people said.

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The U.S. is also poised to reduce tariffs on the non-US content in automobiles imported from Canada to 15% from 25%, some of the people said.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said negotiators are moving toward a deal with “the best terms in each of Canada’s most important strategic sectors” — an apparent nod to matching the UK’s preferential 25% tariff on steel, and Japan and Korea’s 15% rate on autos.

But as the full picture of the agreement begins to come into focus, Carney risks blowback domestically if it appears he paid a high price to codify tariffs that are still significant, and which he has called illegal.

The scope of the deal represents a balancing act for Carney — Canada is both getting preferential rates typically not applied to other countries, and agreeing to accept rates that are above recent historical norms for the two closely integrated economies.

It’s also a potential blow to the US and Canada’s other major North American trade partner, Mexico, which has made several concessions and overtures in the quest for its own deal with the Trump administration, without success thus far.

A White House official on Wednesday afternoon cautioned that the agreement with Canada is still being finalized. Any reporting about details of this possible deal should be regarded as speculation until and unless officially announced by the Administration, they said.

The full terms of the broader deal under discussion remained unclear as of Wednesday afternoon.

The White House sees ending the bans as a pillar of any deal, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether provincial premiers, who control the rules of alcohol distribution, would agree to put American booze back on store shelves. If they don’t, the tentative trade agreement between the US and Canada that Trump announced Tuesday night is at risk.

The Canadian dollar strengthened on Wednesday and was trading at C$1.3809 per U.S. dollar shortly after 7 p.m. New York time — its highest level since June 1.

Shares of Canadian steel producer Algoma Steel Group Inc. extended an earlier gain to as much as 24% in Toronto, its biggest-ever intraday rally. In the U.S., steel product maker Nucor Corp. dropped 8.9% and Century Aluminum Co. fell 11%.

On Wednesday, Trump nodded to U.S. concessions in the ongoing talks. “Got to give something, and we’re doing certain things. We’re paying a high number. We’re reducing it a little bit,” Trump told reporters, without elaborating. “It’s good for everybody, but our farmers are going to be thrilled. Our manufacturers are going to be thrilled.”

Trump announced late Tuesday that he would pause implementation of the tariffs on Canadian goods for three days after the two sides signaled progress toward an agreement on tariffs. The two close allies, which did roughly $900 billion in trade in goods and services last year, have seen their relationship come under deep strain as Trump has ratcheted up trade pressure on Canada during his second term.

Last year, Trump imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act as he erected his tariff wall around the U.S. economy. The duties irked many close U.S. trading partners and several negotiated deals with the administration to cap sectoral tariffs in exchange for making trade concessions.

Canada had focused its efforts on lowering the steel tariff, in particular, as well as the duties on automobiles. Canada is the top source of U.S. aluminum imports, though the U.S. has no capacity to meet its own demand and those tariff costs have been largely passed on in entirety to American buyers.

However, even as they work to fine tune the details, Trump administration officials are under pressure to avoid applying a reduced rate uniformly across steel and aluminum imports from Canada, some people familiar with the discussions said.

The Coalition for a Prosperous America, a manufacturing advocacy group that has supported tariffs, and other stakeholders have lobbied the Trump administration to pair any primary aluminum tariff reduction with continued 50% levies on derivative products to better protect U.S. fabrication that makes up the bulk of the domestic aluminum industry.

At risk, they warn, are some 125,000 jobs in the U.S. tied to aluminum rolling, drawing and extruding.

Imported Canadian supplies currently make up about half of U.S. aluminum consumption.

–With assistance from Brian Platt, Joe Deaux and Matthew Griffin.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

This post was re-posted from Canadian Mortgage Trends.