Opinion: In Canada's housing market, more info has not brought more certainty | Daily Hive

Opinion: In Canada's housing market, more information has not brought more certainty

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Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by Hashim Arthur, the chief operating officer for Coldwell Banker Canada.

Open your phone on any given morning, and Canada’s housing market could be crashing, recovering, stabilizing, or somehow doing all three at once.

One headline announces that sales are rising. Another warns that the condominium market is in serious trouble. A TikTok economist predicts that mortgage rates are about to spike, a Reddit thread insists prices are headed for a major correction, and someone in your group chat knows about a house that sold in two days with multiple offers.

Canada already has a housing affordability crisis. Now, it’s facing an information crisis, too.

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Homes cost too much, rents cost too much, and for many people, saving for a down payment feels like trying to fill a bathtub while the drain is still open. Canadians are already navigating supply shortages, construction costs, zoning debates, interest rates, government policy, and changing economic conditions. They are now expected to sort through an endless stream of housing content and determine which parts are useful, which parts are promotional and which parts have little relevance to the decision in front of them.

There has never been more housing information available to the average person. Canadians can watch a Bank of Canada press conference before breakfast, compare neighbourhood sales data over lunch, check mortgage rates in the afternoon and receive an AI-generated market forecast before dinner. Economists, brokers, developers, investors, politicians, and housing commentators are all competing for attention across multiple platforms.

In theory, this should make the market easier to understand. In reality, many people are doing more research and feeling less certain.

Consider the housing news Canadians received in July. Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reported that national home sales had edged higher and prices were flat. The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25 per cent and described housing activity as weak but stabilizing. A day later, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reported that housing starts in larger urban centres were down 13 per cent from the previous year, with sharp differences from one city to the next.

Every one of those statements came from a credible national institution. Together, they created a market that seems to be moving in a few directions at once.

Depending on which headline someone saw first, the housing market was recovering, weakening, stabilizing or preparing for another major shift. Prices were flat nationally, falling in some areas and rising in others. Inventory was close to historical norms, while “affordability” remained challenging for many households.

The average person is unlikely to sit down with three national reports, a spreadsheet and a fresh pot of coffee to reconcile the differences. They are more likely to see a cropped headline in a group chat, followed by a 30-second TikTok video predicting a rate shock and a YouTube thumbnail announcing that the Canadian housing crash has finally arrived.

Housing content is increasingly created for engagement, while housing decisions require context. Nuance rarely performs as well as certainty. “Conditions vary by property type, price point and neighbourhood” may be accurate, but it will never travel as far as “The crash has started” or “The market is back.”

The platforms delivering housing information reward a strong opinion, a dramatic prediction and a sense of urgency. The people making actual decisions need local data, caveats and an honest explanation of what remains uncertain.

Picture a first-time buyer in the Greater Toronto Area. She has a dozen listings saved, three mortgage calculators open, and a family group chat that alternates between telling her to buy immediately and warning her to wait for prices to fall.

She reads that national home sales have increased, sees reports describing the condominium market as deeply troubled and learns that fixed mortgage rates can move even when the Bank of Canada holds its policy rate. Her brother sends her a video predicting a 30 per cent market correction. The condominium she likes has been sitting for more than a month, while another property she dismissed as overpriced sells before the weekend.

By the end of the week, she knows far too much about the housing market and trusts far less of what she reads.

National data can also become misleading when it is applied too broadly. A detached home in Whitby, a Downtown Vancouver condominium, a Halifax duplex, and a Kelowna townhouse are shaped by different economic conditions, migration patterns, supply levels, property types, and local policies.

A Toronto condominium buyer scrolling through a large number of active listings is not navigating the same market as a family searching for a detached home in the suburbs. A renter in Vancouver may learn very little from a headline about flat national home prices when the unit upstairs has just been relisted for hundreds of dollars more per month. A buyer relocating to Calgary may be watching population growth and new construction, while someone in Halifax is dealing with an entirely different combination of wages, inventory and competition.

National statistics can be accurate and still offer limited practical value to someone deciding whether to make an offer on a particular street.

For decades, real estate agents controlled much of the information consumers needed, including listings, sales history, and neighbourhood intelligence. Much of that information is now available instantly through your phone. The value of the professional increasingly comes from interpreting what the information means in a specific market and for a specific client.

An agent should be able to explain whether a national trend applies locally, whether a price reduction signals genuine seller motivation, and whether a headline reflects a temporary shift or a longer-term pattern. They should also be willing to explain where the data ends and uncertainty begins.

The industry needs to be honest about its own contribution to the noise. Every market update framed as good news, every vague claim that now is the time to buy or sell, and every selectively presented statistic adds another layer of confusion.

Consumers can usually tell when they are being sold to. What they need is someone willing to explain what is happening, what is still unclear and how the available information relates to their decision.

Before acting on any housing headline, consumers should be able to ask a few basic questions: What geography does this information describe? Which type of property does it cover? What period is being compared? Who benefits from the way the information is being presented?

Those questions will not make the housing market simpler, but they can make it easier to separate a useful signal from content designed to attract attention.

Agents no longer need to prove that they possess more information than their clients. They need to demonstrate that they can explain the information clients already have, add the local context that an algorithm can’t, and be honest when the market doesn’t offer a clear answer.

Canada has no shortage of housing data. What Canadians need is more help understanding what any of it means for the home, building, or neighbourhood directly in front of them.

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