Canadian Home Sales Rise as Toronto Shows Signs of Bottoming Out

(Bloomberg) -- Canadian home sales climbed for a third straight month in October, the longest string of increases in more than a year as Toronto shows signs of bottoming out.

The number of transactions rose 0.9 percent nationally from September, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Wednesday in Ottawa. In Toronto, the country’s largest market, transactions were up 2.5 percent on the month. They also rose in Vancouver.

Canadian policy makers have sought to engineer a soft landing for Canada’s housing market, amid worries about runaway prices in cities such as Toronto and Vancouver, and the data suggest it may be working. Toronto real estate, still among the world’s most overvalued, is recovering after a slowdown that saw sales plummet in June to the lowest level since 2010.

New mortgage measures which take effect in January, “will likely influence some home buyers to purchase before the stress test comes into effect, especially in Canada’s pricier housing markets,” CREA President Andrew Peck said in a statement.

In Vancouver, Canada’s second-largest housing market, sales rose 0.2 percent and in the nearby Fraser Valley they climbed by 3.6 percent.

--With assistance from Erik Hertzberg

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Quinn in Ottawa at gquinn1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Theophilos Argitis at targitis@bloomberg.net, Chris Fournier, Stephen Wicary

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