GTA Home Sales Rise 7% in April While Prices Keep Falling — What It Means for Vancouver Buyers
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Home sales in the Greater Toronto Area rose 7% year-over-year in April, with 5,946 transactions recorded by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB). It was the second straight month of annual gains. On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales also rose 6.1% from March, suggesting genuine forward momentum rather than a one-month blip.
But the price story told a different tale. The average selling price fell 4.9% year-over-year to $1,051,969, while the composite benchmark price — designed to track the typical home — dropped 6.6%. New listings fell 9.3% to 17,097, and total active listings declined 6.4% to 25,110. TRREB chief information officer Jason Mercer said lower prices and borrowing costs have been a catalyst for buyers this spring, though the market still carries substantial pent-up demand.
The national backdrop adds urgency. The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) downgraded its 2026 forecast in mid-April, citing an oil shock driven by the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran that pushed fixed mortgage rates higher. The national average price was $673,084 in March, down 0.8% year-over-year, and the MLS Home Price Index marked its 16th consecutive monthly decline. CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart said many buyers are playing the waiting game amid global uncertainty.
Question
If GTA sales are rising while prices fall, why hasn't the same dynamic taken hold in Greater Vancouver — and what does the divergence tell us about each market's recovery path?
Editor's Comment
Toronto’s spring rebound is a useful comparison for Greater Vancouver, but the article correctly highlights why we haven’t seen the same “sales up, prices down” snap-back here: our price floor is still high relative to incomes, and rate sensitivity bites harder when the average is around $1.2M. A 3% dip in Metro Vancouver (and ~6% in the Fraser Valley) helps, but it hasn’t been enough of a reset to pull large numbers of sidelined buyers back the way a ~7% benchmark correction did in the GTA. For buyers, the risk in “waiting for Toronto-style momentum” is that the best negotiating conditions often show up before headlines turn positive—especially in pockets with elevated inventory and motivated sellers. The flip side is that the macro backdrop in the piece (higher fixed rates tied to global uncertainty, sluggish B.C. economy, sales running ~35% below the 10-year seasonal norm) argues against expecting a fast, broad-based rebound. For sellers, the practical message is to stop anchoring to 2025 comparables and price to today’s competition. In a market this far below normal sales levels, sharp initial pricing and clean presentation matter more than ever; otherwise, listings simply sit and end up chasing the market.