Canada's booming real estate market is expected to slow down this year, but the prediction of most analysts is that it will be a gentle decline rather than a sharp drop.
Royal LePage, a leading Canadian real estate service, predicts total sales this year will drop by a modest 1 per cent, marking the first annual decline in five years.
At the same time, Royal LePage predicts the average price of a home in Canada will increase by 4.5 per cent, in sharp contrast to the 9 per cent jump in prices registered in each of the past two years.
Much of the boom of recent years was due to low interest rates that drew first-time buyers into the market earlier than usual. Last year was the second strongest market in unit sales.
'What we are talking about is an extremely healthy market,' said Royal LePage chief executive Phil Soper.
However, one source of uncertainty across the country is the impact of the increasingly higher Canadian dollar on the economy. Equally uncertain is how the declining US dollar will affect the huge level of trade between the two countries.
The Bank of Canada twice raised interest rates in recent months, warning there would be more increases in store to slow down the economy.