New Housing Price Index

New house prices continued their climb in May, as the New Housing Price Index (1997=100) rose 0.6%, up from 0.4% in April. On a 12-month basis, this index of contractors' selling prices advanced 4.4%. This is down slightly from last month when the published annual increase was 4.5%.

A favourable housing market and higher prices for inputs, such as labour and land, continued to push prices up nationally. Land increases were observed in 7 of the 21 urban centres surveyed.

Fifteen of the 21 urban centres registered monthly increases. Of the centres with the strongest growth, St. Catharines-Niagara led the way with an increase of 1.3% followed by increases of 1.1% in Toronto and Saint John-Moncton-Fredericton. Significant increases were observed in Vancouver (+0.8%) and Hamilton (+0.6%). Home builders in all these areas cited favourable market conditions along with higher prices for building materials and labour; home builders in Saint John-Moncton-Fredericton, Vancouver and Hamilton also noted higher land values.

Halifax, Montréal, Calgary and Victoria recorded increases of 0.3% while St. John's, Québec, London and Edmonton rose 0.2%. Ottawa-Gatineau and Regina posted increases of 0.1%.

Six urban centres registered no change and there were no monthly decreases in May.

Once again, Québec registered the largest 12-month increase (+9.2%) for new homes. Hamilton was next with an increase of 7.0% followed by Regina (+6.7%). There were no annual decreases.

Note: With this release of New Housing Price Index (NPHI), Statistics Canada has converted the time base of the indexes from 1992=100 to 1997=100.

The new 1997=100 series will be available retroactively from January 1981 in CANSIM but will have different databank numbers. The 1992=100 based NHPI will continue to appear in CANSIM, but the 1992=100 based index will not be updated after April 2003.

For more information, please contact Client Services (613-951-9606).

Available on CANSIM: table 327-0005.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 2310.

The second quarter 2003 issue of Capital expenditure price statistics (62-007-XPB, $24/$79) will be available in October.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Perry Kirkpatrick (613-951-9606, fax: 613-951-1539; infounit@statcan.gc.ca) or Susan Morris (613-951-2035; morrsus@statcan.gc.ca), Prices Division.