Canada’s largest real estate markets have seen a dramatic slowdown since the onset of the pandemic. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) data shows the number of permanent residents made a sharp decline in May. While Toronto and Vancouver can attribute this trend to the pandemic, it’s been a more long-term issue for Montreal.
Toronto Immigration Drops Over 69%
The number of permanent residents admitted to settle in Greater Toronto is down for a third month now. There 3,630 permanent residents admitted in May, down 69.6% from a year before. This is an improvement from the 84.2% drop experienced in April, but is still less than half the admissions we saw last year. The decline can almost exclusively be attributed to the pandemic, having started in March of this year.