Buyer's, Seller's or Balanced Market? How to Read the SNLR and Months of Inventory

Whether a housing market favours buyers or sellers comes down to how quickly homes listed for sale are being bought. Real estate boards and CREA measure it three ways: the sales-to-new-listings ratio (SNLR), months of inventory, and in British Columbia the sales-to-active-listings ratio. This page explains each one, the thresholds CREA uses, and what the measures can and can’t tell you. It is part of the site’s housing market analysis section.

The three measures

Sales-to-new-listings ratio (SNLR)

The SNLR is the number of homes sold in a month divided by the number of new listings that came on the market that month, as a percentage. It compares the flow of demand with the flow of new supply.

CREA’s national SNLR has a long-term average of 54.7%, and CREA describes readings between roughly 45% and 65% as consistent with a balanced market. Above that band, sales are absorbing new listings quickly (a seller’s market); below it, listings are piling up faster than buyers take them (a buyer’s market).

Months of inventory

Months of inventory is the number of homes for sale at the end of the month divided by the month’s sales: how many months it would take to sell every listing at the current pace if no new listings arrived. Unlike the SNLR, it measures the stock of homes for sale, not just the new flow.

CREA’s national long-term average is 5 months. Using one standard deviation either side of that average, CREA treats fewer than 3.6 months as a seller’s market and more than 6.4 months as a buyer’s market.

Sales-to-active-listings ratio

Greater Vancouver Realtors and some other B.C. boards report sales as a share of all active listings rather than new listings. Greater Vancouver Realtors says its historical data show downward pressure on prices when the ratio stays below 12% for a sustained period and upward pressure when it is above 20% for several months. Its ratio for September 2026 was 10.9%. The thresholds differ from the SNLR’s because the denominator, every active listing, is much larger than one month’s new listings.

The national reading now

The national SNLR was below its long-term average, and months of inventory were below their long-term average. The national housing market snapshot has the rest of CREA’s monthly figures.

Local readings

The national figures blend very different local markets. Boards that publish an SNLR or months of supply in their monthly release:

Sources: the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Richmond Hill, Oshawa) and the Calgary Real Estate Board monthly releases. Each board defines months of supply its own way, so compare a market with its own history more than with another board’s figure.

Other boards publish different measures or none: the Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton and Winnipeg market pages have each city’s latest sales and listings figures.

How the measures relate to prices

A seller’s market tends to come before rising prices and a buyer’s market before falling ones, because the balance of buyers and listings sets how much room there is to negotiate. The link isn’t immediate or exact: prices usually react over several months, and an SNLR can stay high while prices soften if sellers are cutting asking prices to get sales. That is why boards and CREA report the measures alongside price data such as the MLS HPI benchmark, and why the home price forecast analysis treats them as one leading indicator among several.

Other signals that help read a market:

• Days on market: how long homes take to sell. Rising days on market usually mean buyers have more choice.
• Sale-to-list price ratio: the sale price as a percentage of the asking price. Above 100% means homes are selling over asking.
• Price trends: the benchmark price, which tracks a typical home, moves more slowly than the market-balance measures.

Limits of these measures

• Averages hide local differences. A city-wide ratio can mask a seller’s market for detached houses and a buyer’s market for condos, or very different conditions by neighbourhood.
• Seasonal swings. New listings fall sharply in December and rise in spring, which moves the SNLR without any real change in demand.
• New listings are not all inventory. The SNLR ignores homes that have been listed for months; months of inventory captures them.
• Relisting. A home taken off the market and relisted can count as a new listing again, inflating new listings.
• Thresholds are conventions. CREA’s thresholds come from the national history of each measure; a local board’s history can differ, so a local reading is best compared with that board’s own averages.

Related

• Home prices vs household income: the price-to-income ratio
• Is Canada in a housing bubble?
• Canada housing market reports by city