PEI posts fastest population growth in Canada

April 7, 2021


Three-bedroom PEI bungalow recently listed at $159,000. | C-21 Northumberland Realty

Prince Edward Island is posting the highest population increase of any region in a country with the highest population growth in the word, according to Statistics Canada data.
And the housing action in Canada’s smallest province reflects the boom in PEI’s population, which is increasing by 2.2 per cent annually. This compares with a population growth of 1.73 per cent in second-place Ontario and a national population increase of 1.4 per cent, data shows. It is also higher than Toronto, Canada’s fastest-growing major city, which saw a 2 per cent increase in population in the period study.
The data, from July 2018 to July 2019, shows that Canada led the world in population growth with the biggest expansion in 29 years.
Canada’s 1.4 per cent rise in population is more than twice as high as in the United States and the United Kingdom, tied for second place, with a 0.6 per cent population increase in the same period.
The housing market in PEI is seeing the effect of rapid population growth first hand.
In the first two months of this year, for example, home sales soared 26 per cent, year-over-year to a record high of 285 transactions. The average home price spiked 17 per cent in the same period to an all-time high of $313,132.
According to a Royal Lepage study, 15 per cent of PEI buyers are now coming from outside of Atlantic Canada, five times higher than normal, with many arriving from Ontario, due both to seeking safety from COVID-19 in the Atlantic bubble and relatively low home prices.
“For what you’d buy the cheapest, absolute worst house next to the railroad tracks in Burlington, Ontario for — $600,000 to $700,000 — you can buy a mansion here,” Michael Poczynek, a Century 21 Northumberland Realty real estate agent in Charlottetown, told the Financial Post.