The slowdown in Canada's housing market will get worse before it gets any better new analysis predicts, because the country is about to be flooded with a “huge amount” of new homes.

“Canada has been undergoing a construction boom,” Capital Economics senior economist Stephen Brown wrote in the report issued last week, adding that, “as has been typical of historic real estate cycles around the world, new supply will reach the market just as demand is falling.”

Indeed, home sales in Toronto in 2018 were 15% below their historical norm in 2018, while in Vancouver they ran 40% below the long-run average. If the percentage of unsold new homes in Vancouver remains what it is, the number of unsold houses on the market will double in the metro area over the next two years as 40,000 new homes come on the market, Brown predicted.

The situation isn't quite so dire in Toronto — yet. Just 1% of new homes in the area sit unsold, compared to 7% in Vancouver. But Brown expects Toronto to follow in Vancouver's footsteps this year.

Developers will react by cutting back on new housing starts. But the lag between start and completion means the problem will happen regardless of what developers do now, Brown suggested. Even if Vancouver stopped building new homes entirely, the oversupply in the next two years would be nearly as large as if construction continued, he added.