Home sales across Canada understandably took a massive hit because of COVID-19, but they started to bounce back in May.

They rose 56.9% in May after reaching record low levels in April, but they’re still down nearly 40% compared to May 2019.

To put it in perspective, May was a far better month than April, but the sales numbers were still the lowest they’ve been since January 2009 during The Great Recession.

“May’s housing numbers are certainly a mixed bag of results – sales and new listings are both way up month-over-month, but still way down compared to a year ago,” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s senior economist.

“The big picture is things are moving in the right direction, but still have a long way to go.”

Cathcart added that those numbers continued to rise into the first week of June, so he believes the recovery trend will continue.

As Cathcart mentioned, the number of newly listed properties shot up 69% between April and May, but that May 2020 number was still down 38.1% from 12 months earlier.

The MLS Home Price Index was basically unchanged between April and May (-0.08%), but was still up year-over-year (5.3%).