St. Catharines–Niagara housing market

New-home prices

Statistics Canada's new housing price index for St. Catharines–Niagara stood at 120.7 in Sep 2026, down 2.8% from a year earlier, compared with down 2.0% for Canada as a whole.

With December 2016 set to 100, the index means builders are charging about 20.7% more for a comparable new home than they did then.

The index peaked at 130.5 in May 2022 and is now 7.5% below that high, so new-home prices have given back part of their earlier gains.

The index tracks contractors' selling prices for new homes of the same specifications. It does not cover resale homes, so it shows builder pricing rather than the whole market.

Construction and supply

Builders started 2,826 homes in St. Catharines–Niagara over the 12 months to Sep 2026, up 45.2% from the previous 12 months.

1,334 homes were completed over the same period (down 41.6%), and 4,659 were under construction at the latest count (up 44.3% year over year).

More homes are being started than finished, so the construction pipeline is growing and should keep completions up in the coming months.

Building permits, which come before construction starts, covered 3,194 dwelling units over 12 months, up 2.5%. Rising permits usually point to more starts ahead.

Of newly completed homes, 190 were still unsold or unrented at the latest count (up 19.5%), while 397 new homes were sold or rented on completion over the last 12 months (down 34.7%).

Population and housing need

St. Catharines–Niagara's population was estimated at 503,670 (July 1, 2025), growing 2.0% over the year.

That works out to 5.6 housing starts per 1,000 residents, and 2.6 completions per 1,000.

Roughly 10,062 residents were added in the latest year, about 7.5 new residents for every home completed. That is more people per new home than the typical household size, so population growth is outpacing new supply.

Rental market

CMHC's Rental Market Survey put the purpose-built rental vacancy rate at 3.5% (October 2025 survey), down 0.1 percentage points from the previous survey. A rate of 3% or more is generally considered balanced or soft, giving renters more choice.

The average two-bedroom rent across all purpose-built units was $1,527 a month, up 3.5% year over year.

Advertised two-bedroom rents averaged $1,900, up 1.1% year over year.

Borrowing costs

Borrowers who took out a new uninsured mortgage in Aug 2026 paid an average of 4.58% on fixed terms of five years or more and 3.90% on variable rates, according to the Bank of Canada. The five-year-plus fixed average is up 0.3 percentage points from a year earlier.

Variable rates sit 0.68 points below long fixed terms, so borrowers are paying a premium for payment certainty.

The Bank of Canada's policy rate is 2.50% and the banks' prime rate is 4.70%. Variable-rate mortgages are priced off prime, so they move when the policy rate changes; fixed rates follow Government of Canada bond yields, with the 5-year yield at 3.46%.