REMAX Canada reported luxury-home sales gains in seven of 13 markets through September, while the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) said national home sales declined, underscoring a split between luxury and broader housing activity.
The report measures sales during the first nine months of 2026 against the same period a year earlier. Burlington led the increases at 26.3%, followed by St. John’s CMA at 21%, Calgary at 20.6%, Edmonton at 15.9% and Saskatoon at 15.3%. Ottawa rose 7.6% and Winnipeg 3%.
Sales fell 17% in Greater Vancouver, 16.7% in Oakville and 9.4% in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Montreal declined 3.7%, London-St. Thomas 3.4% and Halifax-Dartmouth 0.5%.
REMAX linked Calgary and Edmonton’s gains to energy investment. It associated Saskatoon’s increase with Saskatchewan’s resource sector and agricultural wealth, and cited offshore oil production and broader energy investment in St. John’s.
Some top-end segments moved differently from the wider local results. GTA sales above C$7.5 million rose 17.6%, and REMAX counted 18 sales above C$10 million, including 15 in Toronto’s 416 area code. In Greater Vancouver, detached-home sales above C$5 million fell 8%; detached sales above C$3 million declined 17%.
REMAX defines a luxury home by a threshold set at twice the average sale price in each market. That cutoff ranged from C$800,000 in St. John’s CMA to C$3.25 million in Oakville, and was C$3 million in both the GTA and Greater Vancouver. The varying thresholds mean the figures track locally defined price segments across 13 markets.
CREA said Canadian MLS home sales fell 2.3% from August. Actual, not seasonally adjusted, sales activity was 7.7% below September 2025, while the non-seasonally adjusted National Composite MLS Home Price Index fell 3.4% year over year. CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart said the decline followed a jump in fixed mortgage rates, with affordability already stretched. “Until that becomes clearer, this fresh round of uncertainty will likely send some buyers back to the sidelines,” he said.
The Bank of Canada raised its overnight-rate target by 25 basis points to 2.5% on Oct. 28, after the REMAX sales period ended. CREA scheduled its next statistics package for Nov. 17, and the Bank of Canada set Dec. 9 for its next rate announcement.
