Six months into 2026, Canada’s housing market looks less like a straight line and more like a weather radar, with bright hot spots of activity sitting beside pockets of calm. Using January and May 2026 reports from the Canadian Real Estate Association, this analysis highlights how unbalanced current conditions are, with some regions seeing strong price growth while others remain comparatively subdued.
To make sense of this split, Zoocasa examined the latest sales‑to‑new‑listings ratios (SNLR) from CREA’s May 2026 data, the metric realtors use to gauge who holds the power in a given market.
The rule of thumb is straightforward: an SNLR above 60% signals a seller’s market, below 40% points to a buyer’s market, and anything between 40% and 60% suggests a roughly balanced market where neither side has a clear upper hand.
The Best Markets to Sell Your Home in 2026
A handful of Canadian cities are firmly in sellers’ market territory in 2026, where listings turn over quickly, and buyers have limited room to negotiate. Here are the seller’s markets this year so far:
- Saguenay, QC: SNLR 82.4%
- Quebec CMA: SNLR 77.1%
- Trois‑Rivières, QC: SNLR 76,5%
- Winnipeg, MB: SNLR 70.1%
- Saint John, NB: SNLR 67.3%
- Halifax‑Dartmouth, NS: SNLR 61.7%
- Montreal CMA: SNLR 61.1%
- Sherbrooke, QC: SNLR 60.8%
Quebec is the clear standout, accounting for half of the cities on this list. For buyers considering any of these markets, the message is simple: be prepared to move quickly and make strong offers, as there is little tolerance for low bids or lengthy negotiations.
Canada’s Balanced Markets in 2026: Where Buyers and Sellers are on Equal Footing
In balanced markets, bidding wars are less common than during the 2021 peak, but demand remains strong enough to support prices.
In May 2026, about 41% of the regions are considered balanced. Alongside the national market, these include major centres such as Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa, as well as mid‑sized cities like Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Kitchener‑Waterloo, London and St. Thomas, Victoria, Hamilton‑Burlington, and Gatineau.
Balanced, however, does not mean uneventful. Thunder Bay, for example, is classified as balanced by SNLR, yet it still recorded the largest price increase in 2026 so far.
That contrast shows how similar levels of supply‑demand balance can produce very different price outcomes for buyers and sellers, depending on local demand and inventory.
Canada’s Buyer’s Markets in 2026: Where House‑Hunters Still Have Leverage
Despite a national market that leans toward balanced or competitive conditions, several Canadian cities remain firmly in buyers’ market territory in 2026. In these regions, an SNLR below 40% indicates that new listings are outpacing sales and that buyers have more bargaining power on price and conditions. As of May, buyer’s market conditions are present in these markets:
- Windsor‑Essex, ON: SNLR 34.7%
- Greater Vancouver, BC: SNLR 35.7%
- Niagara Region, ON: SNLR 36.5%
- Fraser Valley, BC: SNLR 36.7%
- Newfoundland and Labrador: SNLR 37.0%
- Greater Toronto, ON: SNLR 37.2%
Of course, there is an important caveat. A buyer’s market does not automatically make a city affordable. Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto remain among the most expensive markets in Canada. What buyers gain in these cities is primarily more choice and stronger negotiating leverage, rather than dramatically lower prices.
Canadian Real Estate Markets With the Biggest Price Increases
Nationally, the average home price climbed from about $653,000 in January to roughly $702,000 by May, a jump of nearly $49,000, or 7.5%, in less than half a year. Three cities are left that are far ahead in national gain:
- Thunder Bay, ON: about +$101,000 (31.3%)
- Regina, SK: about +$83,000 (25.3%)
- Sudbury, ON: about +$80,000 (17%)
Several other cities are close behind, also posting gains well above the national average, including Ottawa (up about $93,000, or roughly 15%), Saint John (up about $55,000, or roughly 16%), and Halifax‑Dartmouth (up about $59,000, or roughly 10%).
Canadian Real Estate Markets With the Biggest Price Drops
For buyers looking for an actual deal, the data points to a short list of cities where price growth has stalled or reversed altogether:
- Trois‑Rivières CMA: about −$15,500 (−3.5%)
- Greater Vancouver: about +$24,100 (+2.0%)
- Montreal CMA: about +$12,800 (+2.0%)
Trois‑Rivières is the only market to record an outright price decline so far in 2026, while Greater Vancouver and Montreal saw almost flat price growth, even as most other regions posted price growth well above the national average.
As prices rise sharply in places like Thunder Bay, Regina, and Sudbury, the gap between Canada’s historically “affordable” cities and its most expensive ones is narrowing quickly. For anyone who assumed cheaper markets would stay cheap, 2026 is the year that assumption is getting challenged.
Staying the Course on Homeownership
For the rest of 2026, buyers and sellers should expect very different experiences depending on whether their local market is in the roughly 22% that favours buyers, the 37% that favours sellers, or the 41% that are balanced.
Buyers, sellers and everyone in between will face very different realities over the rest of 2026, but the desire to own a home remains very strong, even as affordability remains the main obstacle.
According to a recent TD Bank Group survey of 1,500 Canadians about how household budgets are tightening amid mortgage renewals, 75% of respondents are setting money aside each month for a future home purchase. Nearly one in four (24%) are also considering alternative living arrangements to enter the market, highlighting how strongly Canadians remain committed to homeownership, even when it requires sacrifice.
