Analysis shows Hamilton’s housing sector witnessing a minor retreat in prices and rents despite a significant surge in new construction projects. Photo credit: Shutterstock
Recently released statistics show that housing prices and rents in Hamilton have fallen, but only slightly.
Meanwhile, the City of Hamilton has seen a 237 per cent increase in housing starts year over year.
Home Sales
The Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington (RAHB) released their October 2023 statistical report which shows that home sales have slowed and prices have fallen.
In October, the benchmark price in Hamilton fell to $766,100, about four per cent lower than September 2023 and even over one per cent lower than October 2022.
The report reads that prices currently align with those seen at the beginning of 2023.
Home sales have also slowed with a total of 408 units sold, which the group says makes October 2023 “the slowest October reported since 2010.”
There is also a rise in new listings which means that there is a build up of “nearly five months supply” which is “welcome news for buyers who now have more choice and flexibility in their home buying decisions.”
Year-to-date the median price for a detached home in Hamilton is $807,000. Other median prices are $715,000 for a row house, $675,050 for a semi-detached home, and $473,750 for an apartment.
Rents
The average rents in Hamilton for October have also fallen slightly since the previous month, but, unlike housing prices, are still up year over year according to the newly released Rentals.ca market update.
The average one-bedroom unit rent in Hamilton was $1,868 in October which is down 0.7 per cent from September.
However, it still represents a 9.5 per cent increase from October 2022.
A two-bedroom unit in Hamilton rents at an average of $2,246 per month which is also down slightly from September but up 5.3 per cent from last year.
Regarding rankings, the City of Hamilton is now the 20th most expensive city to rent a one-bedroom unit out of the 35 Canadian cities analyzed in the report.
In September, Hamilton was ranked the 18th most expensive city to rent a one-bedroom unit.
In terms of the nationwide trend, the report says “the annual rate of rent growth in Canada was 9.9 per cent in October, moderating slightly from the 11.1 per cent annual pace in September but representing the second fastest annual increase of the past seven months.”
Housing Starts
Additionally, updated housing starts data was released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) which shows that numbers are trending slowly upward.
A “start” is defined by CMHC as “the beginning of construction work on a building, usually when the concrete has been poured for the whole of the footing around the structure or an equivalent stage where a basement will not be part of the structure.”
Housing starts Canada-wide were at 256,280 units in October, up one per cent from 253,957 units in September.
However, nationally, year-to-date housing starts are down seven per cent in centres that have a population of 10,000 or more.
But that decline does not appear to apply to Hamilton.
The city saw 1,197 housing starts in October 2023 which represents a 237 per cent increase from October 2022.
The data specifies that 32 of those starts are detached homes while the remaining 1,165 starts are other types of dwellings.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
