Not to be confused with Teranet’s House Price Index, the New Housing Price Index (NHPI) is a monthly series that measures changes over time in the contractors’ selling prices of new residential houses, where detailed specifications pertaining to each house remain the same between two consecutive periods.
In Canada, the New Housing Price Index rose 0.4% in December, the same increase as reported in November.
Month-over-month, prices rose the most in Ottawa–Gatineau (+0.8%), followed by St. John’s, Toronto and Oshawa, as well as Vancouver, which all registered 0.7% increases.
Of the 21 metropolitan areas surveyed, only Calgary and Victoria (both down 0.2%) recorded decreases in new housing prices. In Calgary, some builders moved to new phases of development with lower priced lots.
Year over year, the New Housing Price Index was down 0.9% in December, compared with the 1.4% decline registered in November. Western Canada remained the main contributor to the decrease in the total new housing price index.
On the Prairies, 12-month declines were recorded in Edmonton (-9.4%), Calgary (-3.1%) and Saskatoon (-2.0%). Year-over-year declines were also reported in Victoria (-8.2%) and Vancouver (-2.2%).
Source: Statistics Canada
Once again, the largest year-over-year increase was registered in Québec (+6.9%). Higher residential land values remained the primary reason for the increase.
Source: Statistics Canada
Click to enlarge. Source: Statistics Canada
Interesting premise: could lower agent commissions cause housing prices to increase even more? Would money be saved or would it reallocated ? Would it offset any tightening of the mortgage rules? So many variables…
A viewpoint from Derek Holt, economist with Bank of Nova Scotia: February 11, 2010 Financial Post
Mike, does the price down in new house of calgary area mean that the houses are smaller, lower quality than before? Thanks.
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Mike Fotiou says: According to StatsCan, “specifications pertaining to each house remain the same between two consecutive periods.” For their full methodology, please read this.
Inventory is really shooting up this month. I think I’m going to be wrong with my peek inventory max guess of 7,500 in May this year in Calgary by being too low.
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Mike Fotiou says: SFH and condo combined? Last February, there was a SFH month-end inventory of 4352. We`re currently at 2859.
Unfortunately, I don`t have time to do a mid-month update, but here`s the comparison summary for the first 10 days:
METRO STATS UPDATE (Feb 1 – 10, 2010)
2010 / 2009
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Calgary Metro – Single Family
Sales
380 / 253
New Listings
826 / 741
Inventory
2,817 / 4,211
Sales to New
46% / 34%
Sales to Inv
13% / 6%
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Calgary Metro – Condominium
Sales
209 / 121
New Listings
444 / 353
Inventory
1,548 / 2,068
Sales to New
47% / 34%
Sales to Inv
14% / 6%
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Total MLS
Sales
767 / 460
New Listings
1,693 / 1,486
Inventory
7,454 / 9,193
Sales to New
45% / 31%
Sales to Inv
10% / 5%
SP >= LP
61 / 19
Avg. $ Ovr LP
6,467 / 2,715
Max. $ Ovr LP
48,000 / 12,800
SP = LP
19 / 9
% of SP to LP
97.15% / 95.76%