Key Insights from June’s Canadian Housing Data

1. Housing starts fell for a third straight month, and the decline deepened: Actual housing starts in centres with populations above 10,000 came to 20,265 units in June 2026, down 13.0% from the 23,282 units started in June 2025. That is the third consecutive month of year-over-year decline, following drops of 0.6% in April and 5.2% in May, and it is the steepest annual fall since February 2025. Starts also slipped 10.5% from May on a month-over-month basis, so the softening that began in the spring is now showing up in the actual monthly figures and not just the trend. City results swung hard, with the Toronto and Vancouver roles reversing. Toronto starts jumped 25% year-over-year on stronger multi-unit activity, and Montréal rose 10% on the same driver, while Vancouver fell 35% on weaker multi-unit and single-detached construction.

2. The year-to-date lead the market carried all spring has essentially vanished: Cumulative starts for the first six months of 2026 totalled 113,017 units, almost exactly level with the 114,413 units recorded over the same period in 2025 (a decline of about 1.2%). Only a month earlier the five-month tally was running roughly 3% ahead of last year, so June’s weak print erased the entire cushion in a single month.

3. Single-detached starts hit their lowest June level in records going back to 1990: Just 3,839 single-detached homes were started in June, down 10.5% from 4,288 a year earlier and the weakest June for that housing type in more than three decades of data, edging below the previous low set only last June. Single-detached construction now accounts for 18.9% of all starts, down from well over half through the late 1990s. The ground-oriented house that once defined new supply has quietly become a small corner of the market.

4. Construction timelines shortened again, a fourth straight month of improvement: The average time to complete a project in the major metros was 17.1 months in June, down 10.0% from 19.0 months a year earlier. That extends the run of year-over-year improvement to four consecutive months, with the largest gains again in apartments, where average build times eased to 20.1 months from 23.0. Quicker delivery on high-density product lowers carrying costs at a time when soft pricing and slower absorption are pressuring project economics.

5. The resale market kept grinding higher and turned positive year-over-year: National home sales edged up 0.5% month-over-month in June, building on May’s 5.5% jump and leaving activity roughly 7% above where it sat in March. Sales were also 0.9% above June 2025, the first year-over-year gain of 2026 after a string of negative readings. With new listings down 1.3% on the month, the national sales-to-new-listings ratio tightened to 50.2% from 49.3% in May, back above the 50% mark for the first time this year.

6. Home prices stopped falling on the month for the first time since early 2025: The National Composite MLS Home Price Index was flat from May to June, its first month without a decline since January 2025, and was down 3.6% year-over-year, the smallest annual drop since October. The non-seasonally adjusted national average price was $696,078, up 0.5% from a year earlier. Months of inventory held at 4.8, unchanged from May and the lowest reading of 2026, though prices remain lower year-over-year in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and now Nova Scotia, so the stabilization is not yet uniform across the country.

We’ll continue to monitor the data and will share another update as soon as July numbers are released. Stay tuned.