Canada June Home Sales Rise 8.7%

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian sales of existing homes rose for a fifth month in June, adding to evidence that record low borrowing costs are fueling housing demand.

Sales rose 8.7 percent to 41,304 homes from the previous month on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Canadian Real Estate Association said today in a statement from Ottawa. Average home prices rose 3.6 percent from a year earlier and the inventory of unsold homes fell to its lowest since August 2007.

Recent data on Canada’s housing market suggest the Bank of Canada’s efforts to stimulate spending with interest rate cuts are helping fuel demand for homes and may be reversing a slump in home construction. The Bank of Canada, which forecast that housing will shed 1.1 percentage points from growth in 2009, has cut its benchmark lending rate to a record 0.25 percent.

Montreal housing market rebounding

The housing market in Montreal is the most balanced between buyers and sellers it has been in decades, according to the Quebec director of Royal LePage Real Estate Services.

As a result, Dominic St-Pierre predicts the average house price will rise a moderate 2.1 per cent this year to $263,500.

“Between 2001 and 2007, it was a seller’s market and buyers had to act very quickly or they would lose the property they were interested in and at the end of 2008 and early 2009, we experienced a shift to a buyer’s market,” St-Pierre said. “Today, we have reached a more balanced state where supply and demand are more in line.”