While polls and surveys always have to be taken with a grain of salt, one headline jumped out from a poll done in January, entitled: 2024 Canadian Home Buyer report.
This was the line (okay, paragraph) that will stop anybody who reads it:
“Only 11 per cent of Canadians say they expect to buy a home within the next 12 months. That’s still a colossally high number. The most homes sold in a single year in Canada was fewer than 700,000.”
The overall message is that Canadians, despite high interest rates and low supply, are anxious to buy homes. The poll did not identify whether the numbers are first-time buyers or current homeowners. Likely, it’s a combination of both.
Most experts agree that the news that will most affect the housing market is a change in interest rates. The next announcement from the Bank of Canada will come on March 5.
The poll was from a NerdWallet.com study conducted online by The Harris Poll.