What is the MLS® HPI?

Developed using data from the Multiple Listing Service®, the MLS® Home Price Index (or MLS® HPI for short) allows you to see trends in home prices for a specific type of house in a given neighbourhood.

Combined with the knowledge, experience and skills of your REALTOR®, the MLS® HPI allows you to better understand these trends — and how they can affect the market value of your home.

More importantly, though, it helps you approach one of life’s most important decisions — buying or selling a home — with greater confidence.

What can it do for me?

The MLS® HPI is not designed to predict the value of an individual property. However, since it is based on MLS® listing content — a comprehensive and accurate source of real estate data in Canada — the MLS® HPI provides a more precise picture of home price trends in a given region, municipality or neighbourhood.

It can help you by:

• Putting accurate information in the hands of your REALTOR®, who can use it to help you get the right price, whether you’re buying or selling
• Helping you see price trends, so you can plan ahead
• Allowing you to compare home prices “apples-to-apples” across the entire country if you’re moving from one region to another

How does the MLS® HPI work?

The MLS® HPI can help you gauge changes in housing prices over time, including changes in:

• Overall home prices for the market as a whole
• Prices for specific housing categories in a given area, or for the overall market

This information will help you easily determine the market value of a home.

Easy to calculate

The MLS® HPI tracks changes in home prices by comparing price levels at a point in time with price levels in a base (reference) period. The base period value is always 100.

For example, if the base period for single-family homes is 2005, and the MLS® HPI value for single-family homes in December 2011 is 149.1, you know that the value of single-family homes is up 49.1%, compared with 2005 (149.1 − 100 = 49.1%).