Skip to content
Housing Market Insider
Trust & methodology

Methodology

Every figure on this site comes from an official publisher: Statistics Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), or the Bank of Canada. We don't use listing feeds, MLS® data, lender offers or estimates. If an agency doesn't publish a measure for an area, the page says so.

How data is collected

  • Statistics Canada tables are retrieved through its Web Data Service once a day after the 8:30 a.m. Eastern release, and only when the table has changed.
  • CMHC housing starts, completions, vacancy and rent figures are taken from the versions Statistics Canada republishes under its Open Licence.
  • Bank of Canada rates come from the Bank's Valet API.
  • Our collector identifies itself, limits its request rate per site, reuses cached files when nothing has changed, and backs off when a source asks it to.

Validation and publishing

  • Observations are stored with their reference date and are never overwritten; a revision by the publisher is stored as a new version.
  • Before each release, values are checked against plausible ranges and required datasets must be present. If a check fails, the previous release stays live.
  • A page is published for search engines only when it has enough current, independent indicators. Pages with too little data are kept out of search results or not published.
  • Each indicator shows its reference period. Indicators older than their normal release cycle are flagged.

Indicators

  • New housing price index (Statistics Canada): contractors' selling prices of new homes with the same specifications over time. Not a resale price measure.
  • Housing starts, SAAR: the monthly seasonally adjusted pace expressed as an annual rate.
  • Starts, completions and homes under construction: monthly counts for metros; we show 12-month totals.
  • Building permits: dwelling units created in permits issued, summed over 12 months.
  • Vacancy rate and average rent: CMHC Rental Market Survey, purpose-built rentals, each October.
  • Population: quarterly estimates for provinces and annual July 1 estimates for metros.

Housing Market Pulse

For each metro, we rank four indicators against all tracked metros: the 12-month change in housing starts, completions per 1,000 residents, rental tightness (lower vacancy ranks higher) and the yearly change in average 2-bedroom rent. Each rank is a percentile from 0 to 100, and the Pulse is their equal-weighted average. A metro needs at least three current indicators to get a score. The Pulse describes current conditions relative to other metros. It is not a forecast and not a recommendation.

Housing supply momentum

The equal-weighted percentile rank of 12-month changes in housing starts, dwelling units in building permits and homes under construction. At least two of the three are required.

Mortgage calculations

Calculators use fixed formulas and versioned rules taken from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, OSFI and CMHC. Fixed-rate interest is compounded semi-annually. Results are estimates; lenders apply their own criteria.

Geography

Areas are matched using Statistics Canada geographic codes (2021 Standard Geographical Classification), not names. Metro means a census metropolitan area or census agglomeration.