The 2025 TRB Real Estate Prediction Game – Fall Update!

Does life ever go the way you think it’s going to?

Wait, don’t answer that.  We can’t risk today’s comments section turning into a therapy session…

In a few short weeks, I’ll be writing my “year-end” blog posts, and I can’t believe we’ll be looking back at 2025.  It seems like we were just looking ahead at it.

I have to wonder, when all is said and done, how many real estate market participants experienced anything close to resembling what they thought they would in 2025.

It’s been anything but dull, that’s for sure!

Last week, a blog reader asked me to post an updated tally of our TRB Real Estate Prediction game, and I figured this would underscore just how wild a year it’s been.

For those who aren’t familiar with the game, I posted this in early 2025.

February 3rd, 2025: “The 2025 TRB Real Estate Prediction Game”

We did a similar game in 2024, but this year’s game was a bit more aggressive!

Here are the ten questions in the game:

1) What will be the average home price for 2025? (point scored if guess is +/- 2%)
2) Which month of the year will represent the highest average home price? (point scored for correct month)
3) Will any individual month’s average home price top $1,200,000? (point scored for correct Y/N)
4) How many total sales will there be in 2025? (point scored if guess is +/- 5%)
5) Which month of the year will represent the highest number of total sales? (point scored for correct month)
6) Will any individual month of the year see more than 8,000 sales? (point scored for correct Y/N)
7) How many total new listings will there be in 2025? (point stored if guess is +/- 10%).
8) How many individual months will see more than 20,000 active listings (point scored for correct number)
9) Will any individual month of the year see an average 416 condo price higher than the ‘peak’ price of $767,064 recorded in May of 2024? (point scored for correct Y/N)
10) What will the Bank of Canada policy rate be after the last announcement on December 10th, 2025?) (point scored for correct number)

You can clearly see what was on my mind as we began 2025: sales, prices, inventory, interest rates, and the condo market.

We have two months left in the year, but I wanted to take my blog reader’s suggestion and provide an update on where our ten questions stand!

Play along at home, for those of you who entered the game.

For those who didn’t, pay attention to the intersection of predictions versus reality, as I think it really underscores how this year didn’t quite go the way that many thought it would…

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1) What will be the average home price for 2025? (point scored if guess is +/- 2%)

The average sale in each month so far in 2025 is as follows:

The average price is $1,073,644.

However, we noted in the summer blog post that there are more sales in June than in January, as an example, so we’ll need to look for a weighted average.

The weighted average is $1,075,050.

That means our “range” for an accurate guess would be from $1,053,549 to $1,096,551.

Whereas we had five of thirty-two contestants with a correct guess in the summer, we now only have one:

That’s wild!

Derek, Daniel, Quiet Bard, and Hoob lost their point..

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2) Which month of the year will represent the highest average home price? (point scored for correct month)

At this point, the month of May is our peak at $1,120,879.

With the average home prices in September and October coming in at $1,059,377 and $1,054,372 respectively, it’s extremely unlikely that we see either of November or December surpass May.

In that case, the following contestants would get a point:

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3) Will any individual month’s average home price top $1,200,000? (point scored for correct Y/N)

Based on the information in Question #2 above, we know that this one is most certainly going to be a “no.”

There were 17 contestants who predicted “no” and 15 contestants who predicted “yes.”

The no’s have this one, and the following contestants would, or in this case, most certainly will get a point:

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4) How many total sales will there be in 2025? (point scored if guess is +/- 5%)

Who could have possibly predicted this one?

That’s not meant to be rhetorical, but maybe it is?

Coming off a 2024 where there were 67,984 sales, which were up from the all-time low of 66,315 in 2023, most of us thought that sales would increase in 2025.

Of the thirty-two contestants who entered the game:

-average prediction: 72,613
-median prediction: 75,000
-high prediction: 83,312
-low prediction: 42,000

Through ten months, we’ve seen only 54,024 sales.

At this time last year, we had seen 58,750 sales.

Using that ratio, and using the 67,984 sales from 2024, we could estimate that we’ll see 62,515 sales in 2025.

Using our 5% margin for the prediction game, anybody who predicted between

The high

This one is going to be eye-opening.

Through six months, we’ve only seen 30,983 total sales.

Double that, and we’re at 61,966, which would not only be the lowest number of sales this millennium (since I started tracking this data) but also way below the previous low of 66,315 from 2013.

Our 5% margin provides us with a range of: 55,389 to 65,641.

That means only 3/32 contestants receive a point:

These are the same three contestants who received a point in the summer recap, as the needle on sales hasn’t really moved.

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5) Which month of the year will represent the highest number of total sales? (point scored for correct month)

As I noted in this space during the summer, TRREB has a habit of changing the numbers published in “Market Watch” as the year goes on, but as it stands now, our two highest months for sales are:

May: 6,244
June: 6,243

What a narrow margin!

Only four contestants predicted June, whereas a whopping fifteen predicted May.

We saw 6,138 sales in October, so we could see the yearly high take place in November.

But as it stands today, the following contestants would receive a point for May:

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6) Will any individual month of the year see more than 8,000 sales? (point scored for correct Y/N)

As with Question #3, I think we can put a pin in this one, right?

With the highest number of sales sitting at 6,244, there’s absolutely no way we see 8,000+ in either November or December.

Incredibly, there were 21 contestants who said “yes” and only 11 contestants who said “no.”

Here are the contestants receiving a point for answering in the negative:

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7) How many total new listings will there be in 2025? (point stored if guess is +/- 10%).

Ooh, here we go!  Another chance to make a function in Microsoft Excel…

Unlike in the summer edition of this blog post, where I simply took the first six months of the year and doubled it, I’m going to use another weighted average.

Through the first ten months of 2025, we’ve seen 169,195 new listings.

Through the first ten months of 2024, we had seen 148,605 new listings.

Using that ratio, and basing the trajectory on the 164,878 new listings from 2024, we’re on pace for 187,723 new listings.

This number is smaller than the estimate from the summer, but new listings were smaller in July and August, so the figure declined.

Based on our 10% margin for the prediction game, anybody with a prediction of between 168,950 and 206,495.

That means the following eight contestants would receive a point:

Unfortunately, Oscar’s prediction of 276,888 is unlikely to be reached.

But there’s always 2026!

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8) How many individual months will see more than 20,000 active listings (point scored for correct number)

When I drew up this prediction game in early January, I did not think that this question could end up being the most interesting.

But here we are in November, and I think that the active listings statistic is the most fascinating data set of 2025.

As a refresher, we did not see a single month with more than 20,000 active listings from June of 2019 through April of 2024.

In 2024, we saw seven months with more than 20,000 active listings.

So far in 2025, we’ve seen the following:

The trend would tell us that it’s very likely we will see 20,000+ active listings in November.

In 2024, active listings dropped by 37% from October to December.  If this trend continues, we will not see over 20,000 active listings in December.

While four contestants predicted 8 months and one contestant predicted 10 months, no contestant predicted 9 months!

At this point, it looks very likely that no point is awarded to a contestant for Question #8.

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9) Will any individual month of the year see an average 416 condo price higher than the ‘peak’ price of $767,064 recorded in May of 2024? (point scored for correct Y/N)

Our peak price in the 416 condo market so far this year was $731,232 in June.

As of October, that price checked in at $699,241.

I think we can just about go ahead and award this point, right?

An incredible 27/32 contestants predicted “no” for this question, and points would be awarded as follows:

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10) What will the Bank of Canada policy rate be after the last announcement on December 10th, 2025?) (point scored for correct number)

Boy, a lot has changed here in a few short months!

When we did our recap in the summer, Darek, JG, Anne, and BEAN were looking at a potential point for their predictions of 2.50%.

We now know that this will be incorrect.

I mean, tell me there’s a non-zero chance we see an increase in policy rate during the Bank of Canada’s scheduled announcement in December, but this isn’t exactly Lloyd Christmas here.

The policy rate currently sits at 2.25%.

As I will show in a blog post next week, the markets are pricing in a 10% chance of a cut in December and a 90% chance of no change at all.

If that’s the case, then the following contestants would recieve a point:

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Wow.

I just tallied up the results, and it’s wild!

I really thought Derek was in the lead there when I saw his 5/10, but Quiet Bard, Marina, and James S had 5/10 too.

Then JL had 6/10.

But in alphabetical order, I saved the best for last.

Vancouver Keith is in the lead with a whopping 8/10 questions answered correctly!

Looking forward to seeing how the year finishes!

Have a great weekend, everybody!