TORONTO– Canadian existing home sales rose 0.3% in February from January as real-estate activity rebounded in some Canadian cities that were hit by harsh winter weather, the country’s real-estate trade group said in its monthly report Monday. This is impacting the home price Canada wide.

Compared with a year earlier, home sales were up 1.3% in February, the Canadian Real Estate Association said. The Multiple Listing Home Price Index, which is weighted to compensate for fluctuations in the composition of sales, rose 5.1% year-over-year in February, CREA said.

CREA said the number of newly listed homes rose 0.6% month-over-month in February. The number of regional housing markets where February sales were up was roughly even with the areas where sales declined, reflecting little change in activity among most of Canada’s large urban markets, CREA said.

“Sales in February rebounded in some of the smaller local markets where activity was impacted by harsh winter weather in January,” Laura Leyser, CREA president, said in a statement. The average, the non-seasonally adjusted home price in Canada rose 10.1% year-over-year in February, CREA said, to 406,372 Canadian dollars ($367,424).

CREA said the price gain reflects strong sales activity in some of Canada’s most active and expensive markets, including the Greater Vancouver area, which posted the biggest year-over-year increase in sales activity by a large margin.

The real-estate trade group also updated its forecast for home sales activity for 2014 and 2015. CREA now expects home sales to reach 463,700 units in 2014, an increase of 1.3% from 2013 but down from the 475,000 sales the trade group had forecast back in December.

Home sales are forecast to rise 1.2% in 2015 to 469,400 units as affordability is expected to restrain activity in Canada’s most expensive markets. CREA forecasts the national average home price to rise by 3.8% to C$397,000 in 2014, slightly higher from its December forecast of C$391,100. Prices should rise by a further 1.1%, to C$401,400, in the following year.

“Marginally higher mortgage rates are likely to counterbalance the lift provided by stronger economic and continuing job growth, and restrain the momentum for sales activity,” said Gregory Klump, chief economist at CREA, said in a statement.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20140317-705778.html