The REAL Market Report: July 2025

What is a trend? Or should I say, how many data points or instances define a trend?

Our good friend AI says that while two data points can define a trend, some “experts” say that three data points are needed to define a trend.

Okay, interesting, thank you very much. On a side note, I always wonder who these experts are. Anyone can call themselves an expert, especially on the internet where you could create a complete and convincing identity with the help of said AI. But I digress…

Let’s just agree with the experts and say we need three data points to define a trend and make the argument that two just doesn’t fit the bill. If that’s the case then June and July of 2025 are just a flash in the pan compared to the rest of the year, until we see what happens in August.

If you have been following along, the trend I am referring to is the number of sales in each month so far this year. While the early months through the spring of 2025 have seen abysmal returns, June brought a brighter outlook and July surpassed expectations as well.

I would also like to wax poetic about what is good or bad in the market for a minute before we get into the stats, just because I referred to low sales as being “abysmal”.

Whether lower or higher number of sales is good or bad is not really up to me to decide. Is it good if there are lots of sales happening? If you’re a seller it is. What about for the general population? There is an economic argument to be made that every home sale in Canada adds around $40,000 to the economy or some figure like that. Is that a good thing?

It’s a similar argument about prices. Is it good if prices increase over time? Is it bad if prices go down? Or is it the opposite? There are more than two sides to each of these coins and arguments to be made in either direction. But I wanted to make it clear that I am not saying it is good or bad that there have been low sales so far this year.

Alright, time for some numbers.

482 sales is a whopper. My calculation for “expected sales” that I created earlier this year to estimate the number of sales in any given month was absolutely destroyed in July. My prediction was a 394, so yeah, it was pretty far off. Keep in mind that this equation correctly predicted the number of sales in April to the exact number.

482 was 24.2% higher than last year and was the highest total number of sales in any July since 2021.

Those 482 sales are just under 80% of the 10 year average which is also a high mark so far in 2025.

Suffice it to say that these are all signs of a changing market. June was strong, but not this strong. Two data points back to back are now the start of a trend. August is typically a very slow month for real estate sales in our market, but I have seen signs that this trend might continue and cement itself for the rest of 2025.

I’m going to go to average sale price next because that is the next most interesting point in this month’s data pack. $652,272 in July was the second highest average in 2025 trailing only April by a whopping $473.

Compared to the month previous, that is an increase of about 2% and it is a little over 1% more than the year previous. These aren’t massive changes but it shows a resilient market if not a strong one for July.

To drive this point home: in the previous 13 years, prices have declined from June to July 10 out of 13 times. In 2019, the average price increased .4% from June to July and by .2% in 2015. So a 2% increase in that same time span is a seriously strong outlier.

New listings did not indicate any sort of change of direction last month. We have seen record new listings pretty much since the beginning of 2024 and increasing active inventory in the same time span.

There were 1150 new listings last month which led to active inventory sitting at 2062.

1150 new listings is about 125% of the 10 year average and is the highest number in July ever, or at least in the time span that I have data for.

2062 active listings is also a high point for the month of July in that category but is actually the second month in a row that number has declined after reaching a peak in May.

I read a lot of conflicting news reports and headlines in the news after real estate data was released across the province. Some news outlets jumped on the trend of “high sales, the market is taking off, you better buy now!” While others touted “new listings are still high and there is a lot of inventory still available” as a counter argument and much more negative outlook on the market.

I would stand somewhere in the middle with this “recognize that a new trend in sales numbers could lead to a different market in the future”. Pretty vague, I know. My point is that if sales continue to increase and get stronger, then it is eventually going to lead to more competition in the market and renewed confidence. As we work through that built up inventory, it could eventually lead to price increases as well. It won’t happen next month, but it will happen if these trends continue.

There is a lot of demand out there, make no mistake about it. There are a lot of people that want to buy, but they also need to sell. That is evidenced by the number of listings on the market. When those homes sell, the people selling them turn into buyers. Open houses are very busy right now and inquiries, showings, etc are all increasing as well.

The signs are there that this market is changing. If we get another strong month of sales in August, we can officially call it a trend per our esteemed experts. My expected sales is 392, eerily similar to my prediction for last month. See you in a few weeks to see if I’m right!