No crash in store for Canadian housing market.

TORONTO — A slowdown in Canada’s housing market will continue through 2013 and years of stagnation may follow, but no crash is likely because demographic trends will support demand in the medium term, a report by Scotiabank said on Monday.

The report by Canada’s third-largest bank said that home sales have already dropped more than 10% from spring 2012, with prices leveling off but not yet falling except in particularly hard-hit markets.

A slowing housing market could deal the most damage to CIBC, National Bank and TD, according to new a report by Barclays Capital. Housing, which slowed but did not crash as a result of the global financial crisis, helped sustain Canada’s economy through much of 2010 to 2012 but is now starting to slide just as the U.S. housing sector has begun a clear recovery.

Scotiabank said the housing slowdown will trim a quarter of a percentage point from Canada’s economic growth in 2013 and 2014, while the U.S. housing recovery is adding half a percentage point to annual growth rates there.

While Canadian home sales may continue to slump, the report said, prices will likely remain above year-ago levels until at least the second half of 2013, and will not drop as dramatically as they did in the United States.

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