The Most Accurate Home Price Tool: What Buyers and Sellers Need to Know About the MLS® Home Price Index

Image via CREA

If you’ve been keeping an eye on real estate markets lately, you’ve likely seen references to the MLS® Home Price Index (HPI). And while you might know it’s an indicator of what property prices are doing at any given moment, you may not be familiar with exactly what the numbers mean, how they’re calculated, and how the info can benefit you if you’re buying, selling, or simply tracking the value of your home.

First, what is the MLS® Home Price Index?

“It’s a tool that tracks the changes in home prices over time,” says Chris Jokel, Senior Data Engineer at the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). “It’s an advanced, highly accurate way to gauge prices and trends in specific areas—an approach that’s a lot more meaningful than an average or median, which can be skewed by unusually high or low prices or low sales volumes.”

The MLS® HPI—available exclusively to REALTORS®—is calculated monthly and covers the majority of housing markets in Canada. It looks at quantitative factors like square footage and number of bedrooms, and qualitative factors like whether there’s a finished basement or the home has been renovated. The MLS® HPI is based on the value buyers assign to those attributes, according to sold prices, and those values can change over time. For example, the value of home offices and indoor living areas jumped during the pandemic.

By comparing the price of a 2,000 square-foot renovated three-bedroom house in a specific area over time, the MLS® HPI provides a meaningful “apples-to-apples” comparison that helps REALTORS®, buyers, and sellers accurately determine value and make informed decisions.

Understanding the numbers

The MLS® HPI measures price changes based on a specific start date (also called a base period), which is currently January 2005. The base always has an index of 100. So, if you see an MLS® HPI of 120, that means there’s been a 20% increase in prices from that start date. An MLS® HPI of 90 would mean prices have dropped by 10% from that date. And a MLS® HPI of 350—which is closer to what many Canadian markets are seeing now—reflects a 250% jump.

More common measures are year-over-year (e.g. November 2022 to November 2023) and month-over-month (October 2023 to November 2023).

What types of data does the MLS® HPI look at?

There’s no point comparing a two-bedroom bungalow in a small town to a four-bedroom detached home in a big city. The index compares like to like, looking at a wide variety of factors to create a benchmark. Those attributes include:

property type (single family, apartment, townhouse/row unit, etc.);

number of bedrooms and bathrooms;

square footage and lot size;

fireplace, finished basement;

how old the property is;

heating system, foundation, flooring, siding, roofing;

parking (number of spots in a garage or outside);

views (waterfront, panoramic, brick wall); and

proximity to amenities (shopping, schools, hospitals, parks, transportation, etc.).

The actual monthly numbers come from the previous month’s home sales, taken from participating boards’ MLS® Systems for specific geographic areas. The data is cleaned to remove inconsistency and outliers, like properties with unusual characteristics or exceptionally high or low prices not typical for the area. Then, to account for changes in the mix of properties being sold, the MLS® HPI assigns different weights to various property types and regions to reflect the relative importance of each type and region to the market.

How the MLS® HPI helps buyers and sellers

“Understanding price trends over time can help you see the big picture and get an accurate sense of the value of a home you’re looking to buy or sell,” says Jokel. “It gives REALTORS® and their buyer clients a better idea of what to offer, and helps REALTORS® and their seller clients price their properties right and know which offers to say yes to.”

Consumers can try the MLS® HPI themselves: CREA provides a demo of how it works.

When you combine this exclusive tool with a REALTOR®’s expertise in all things real estate, that’s when the magic really happens. A REALTOR® will be able to help you understand and interpret the data, work with you to price your home accurately, and show you how to use that knowledge to make informed decisions and buy and sell with confidence.

By Tamara George