The Daily, Thursday, July 10, 2003. New Housing Price Index

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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.

New Housing Price Indexes

1997=100

May 2003

May 2002 to May 2003

April to May 2003

% change

Canada total

116.0

4.4

0.6

House only

122.1

5.7

0.7

Land only

104.8

1.4

0.4

St.John's

111.7

4.1

0.2

Halifax

119.7

4.6

0.3

Charlottetown

105.1

0.7

0.0

Saint John-Moncton-Fredericton

103.0

2.4

1.1

Québec

120.8

9.2

0.2

Montréal

125.3

6.5

0.3

Ottawa-Gatineau

137.0

2.6

0.1

Toronto

118.9

4.4

1.1

Hamilton

120.3

7.0

0.6

St. Catharines-Niagara

119.6

4.3

1.3

Kitchener-Waterloo

119.1

2.8

0.0

London

115.1

5.5

0.2

Windsor

102.1

0.1

0.0

Sudbury-Thunder Bay

96.3

0.4

0.0

Winnipeg

113.5

3.8

0.0

Regina

123.1

6.7

0.1

Saskatoon

112.6

1.9

0.0

Calgary

129.9

4.8

0.3

Edmonton

123.0

5.3

0.2

Vancouver

96.4

3.4

0.8

Victoria

94.2

5.1

0.3

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.