Nuthawut Somsuk via Getty Images House, property or real estate market price go up or rising concept, small miniature house with green line graph going up on black chalkboard.

MONTREAL ― There’s just no keeping Canada’s housing markets down ― at least not with the policies we’ve tried so far to keep property prices from overheating. House prices in Canada have seen the fastest year-on-year growth since 2016, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Friday ― and it expects prices to accelerate further this year. “Home price growth continues to pick up in housing markets where listings are in short supply, particularly in Southern, Central and Eastern Ontario,” CREA president Jason Stephen said in a statement. “Meanwhile, ample supply across the Prairies and in Newfoundland and Labrador is resulting in ongoing competition among sellers.” Watch: Celebrities who’ve snapped up Canadian real estate. Story continues below.

Although sales fell 2.9 per cent in January from a month earlier, the average resale house price was 11.2 per cent higher than a year ago, at just above $504,000. When the pricey Toronto and Vancouver markets are excluded, the average price is $395,000, up 9.7 per cent in a year. “Price appreciation now resembles what it did prior to the implementation of the B-20 (mortgage stress test), Bank of Canada rate hikes, and Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan,” TD Bank economist Rishi Sondhi noted in a real estate outlook published earlier this week. At that time, British Columbia and Ontario had not yet introduced their foreign buyers’ taxes for the Vancouver and Toronto areas, which were credited with a slowdown in sales, particularly in B.C.