All real estate is local. The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) allows you to see more accurate price trends for a specific type of house in a given region, municipality or neighbourhood than using average or median price measures. Each month, the CREA Café will highlight one community to offer a snapshot of the Canadian housing market.
Home sales in the Niagara region continue to improve, hitting the highest level of any month in almost two years.
According to The Niagara Association of REALTORS® (NAR), 632 units were sold in April 2019, an increase of 22.7% from April 2018. This marks the best sales figure for the region since June 2017.
On a year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 1,872 units over the first four months of the year, up 9.9% from the same period in 2018.
“Home sales continued to rebound in April, hitting the highest level of any month in almost two years,” said Carolyn Bones-Poley, Chief Executive Officer of The Niagara Association of REALTORS®. “Better sales numbers in March and April have come alongside a bounce in new supply as well, as buyers and sellers who went to the sidelines last year seem to be coming back into the market.”
The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI), tracks price trends far more accurately than is possible using average or median price measures. The overall MLS® HPI composite benchmark price for the Niagara region was $404,500, up 6.2% in April 2019 compared to April 2018.
The benchmark price for single-family homes was $411,400, up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis in April. By comparison, the benchmark price for townhouse/row units was $338,200, rising 10.4% compared to a year earlier, and the benchmark apartment price was $283,700, up 13.2%.
The average price of homes sold in April 2019 was a record $441,667, up 6.3% from April 2018.
The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $424,222, climbing 6.7% from the first four months of 2018.
The dollar value of all home sales in April 2019 was $279.1 million, a 30.4% increase from the same month in 2018. It was one of just a handful of times in history the NAR’s MLS® System has processed more than $275 million in a single month.
There were 1,088 new residential listings in April 2019, up 30.8% on a year-over-year basis.
Active residential listings numbered 1,702 units at the end of April, marking an increase of 23.5% from the end of April 2018. That said, while inventory has risen from all-time lows a couple of years ago, levels are still well below the long-term average of close to 3,100 listings for this time of the year.
Months of inventory numbered 2.7 at the end of April 2019, unchanged from the end of April 2018 and well below the long-run average of 5.8 months for this time of year. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
Sales of all property types numbered 676 units in April 2019, an increase of 24.3% from April 2018. The total value of all properties sold was $297.5 million, jumping 32% from April 2018.
The Niagara Association of REALTORS® represents more than 1,190 REALTOR® members serving the Ontario communities of Fort Erie, Fonthill/Pelham, Lincoln, Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-lake, Port Colborne/Wainfleet, St. Catharines, Thorold and Welland.
For a full list of statistics for Niagara, Ontario region as well as other Housing Market Stats, please visit creastats.ca.
