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 Prince Edward Island returned to more average levels in August, however overall supply hit a 16-year low.
Residential property sales numbered 193 units in August 2019. This was a decrease of 18.9% from August 2018, but was still in line with the 10-year average for the month.
On a year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 1,275 units over the first eight months of the year, down 9.2% from the same period in 2018.
The average price of homes sold in August 2019 was $219,922, up 3.3% from August 2018.
The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $231,737, rising 9.5% from the first eight months of 2018.
There were 335 new residential listings in August 2019, up 6.3% on a year-over-year basis.
By contrast, overall supply has trended sharply lower over the last four years to reach the lowest levels in more than 15 years as strong demand has absorbed inventory. Active residential listings numbered 1,079 units at the end of August, down 7.4% from the end of August 2018 and the lowest level for this time of the year since 2003.
There were 5.6 months of inventory at the end of August 2019, up a bit from the 4.9 months recorded at the end of August 2018, but well below the long-run average of 11.2 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.
The total dollar value of all residential home sales in August 2019 was $42.4 million, decreasing by 16.2% from the same month in 2018. The Prince Edward Island Real Estate Association (PEIREA) was incorporated in 1964 under the name of the PEI Real Estate Brokers Association. In 1975, the name of the organization was changed to the PEI Real Estate Association.
