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New Housing Price Index: December 2003
Wednesday, February 17, 2004

The New Housing Price Index (1997=100) rose 0.3% in December, down from November's increase of 0.7%. For the third consecutive month, this index of contractors' selling prices advanced 5.0% on a 12-month basis.

New Housing Price Indexes by urban centre

(1997=100)

  December 2003 December 2002 to December 2003 November to December 2003
    % change
Canada total 119.5 5.0 0.3
  House only
 126.7 6.3 0.3
  Land only
 105.9 1.6 0.2
St. John's 114.6 4.0 0.4
Halifax 121.1 4.5 1.2
Charlottetown 107.2 2.3 0.3
Saint John-Fredericton-Moncton 103.7 3.0 0.0
Québec 126.2 8.8 0.0
Montréal 130.4 6.3 0.2
Ottawa-Gatineau 141.2 3.3 0.1
Toronto 122.6 5.3 0.1
Hamilton 123.0 4.0 -0.1
St. Catharines-Niagara 124.1 6.5 -0.1
Kitchener1 122.1 3.3 1.2
London 117.8 6.2 1.0
Windsor 102.1 0.0 0.0
Sudbury-Thunder Bay 96.7 0.4 0.0
Winnipeg 116.4 4.3 0.9
Regina 128.5 5.7 0.7
Saskatoon 115.9 4.7 0.0
Calgary 135.2 6.0 1.1
Edmonton 126.8 4.4 0.0
Vancouver 97.6 3.9 0.1
Victoria 100.9 10.2 0.5
1Kitchener-Waterloo has been renamed Kitchener.

Prices were up in 13 of the 21 urban centres surveyed. Halifax and Kitchener led the way with monthly increases of 1.2%, followed by Calgary (+1.1%), London (+1.0%) and Winnipeg (+0.9%). For the most part, increases in these urban centres were due to higher prices for labour and building materials, such as lumber. Higher land prices contributed to the increases in Halifax and Calgary.

Significant increases were observed in Regina (+0.7%), Victoria (+0.5%) and St. John's (+0.4%), mostly the result of higher prices for building materials and labour.

Elsewhere, new home prices rose in Charlottetown (+0.3%) and Montréal (+0.2%). Slight increases of 0.1% were noted in Ottawa-Gatineau, Toronto and Vancouver.

Six urban centres registered no change and slight decreases of 0.1% were observed in Hamilton and St. Catharines-Niagara.

As was the case last month, Victoria posted the largest 12-month increase for new homes (+10.2%) followed by Québec (+8.8%) and St. Catharines-Niagara (+6.5%).


Statistics Canada information is used with the permission of Statistics Canada. Users are forbidden to copy the data and redisseminate them, in an original or modified form, for commercial purposes, without the expressed permission of Statistics Canada. Information on the availability of the wide range of data from Statistics Canada can be obtained from Statistics Canada's Regional Offices, its World Wide Web site at http://www.statcan.ca, and its toll-free access number 1-800-263-1136.

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