You need to talk local: Real estate analyst says Maritime market still appreciating while Toronto, Vancouver cool

Real estate analyst talks with Todd Battis about what to expect for housing prices in 2026.

Interest rates have dropped and more housing is under construction. As the market cools for the holiday season, real estate analysts are looking toward 2026 with big changes projected.

“We tend to see properties come off the market for a little bit and then as soon as January 2 hits they start to come back on,” says Matt Honsberger, president of Royal LePage Atlantic. “We’re hitting sort of that low point right now in the year.”

There has been a healthy amount of fear about the future of real estate in Toronto and Vancouver. Honsberger says that’s one of the challenges when analyzing real estate in Canada.

“The whole country gets painted with the brush of Toronto and Vancouver,” he says. “Really, B.C. and Ontario – the last CREA numbers we looked at – were the only markets that had seen price drops year-to-date.”

Honsberger says the most recent numbers go back about a month but they showed slight appreciations for the rest of the provinces in the country.

“Quebec actually has seen a lot.”

Honsberger says you need to talk local when you analyze real estate and Nova Scotia is holding up well.

The overbuilt condo market is creating challenges in Toronto and Vancouver but he says that trend hasn’t reached the Maritimes, even if things are returning to something “more normal,” with the exception of Saint John, N.B., where houses are still selling way over market prices.

“You get a little bit of time to look,” Honsberger says. “You get to make an offer that’s a reasonable offer. You get to put an inspection clause in. Those kinds of things are existing again here in Halifax specifically.”

Honsberger says the people moving right now are the “must-moves”: people who need a new home because their circumstances have changed. He thinks 2026 could be a good time for others to get into the market.

“We haven’t seen prices go crazy this year,” he says. “There’s some investment opportunities out there for those who are out there kind of looking.”

As high rises finish construction in Halifax, Honsberger says there are enough houses to satisfy demand at this point but a lot of new Nova Scotians who arrived in the last five years are still renting and want to own homes. He says people are pleased to move into condos in Toronto but the demand in Nova Scotia is different.

“A lot of the holes as you drive around the peninsula are rental build properties and so we are still going to be short on the low-rise, single-family, semi-detached townhouse stock and I think those are the things that are still moving quite quickly.”

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