Kingston, Ont. has the fastest rising home prices in all of Canada, new numbers show

Kingston's housing market is red hot.

According to a report by Royal LePage's house price survey, the city's housing prices have jumped higher than any other city in the country.

The aggregate price of a home in Kingston increased 38.1 per cent year-over-year, reaching $722,100 in the fourth quarter of 2021. While the median price of a single-family detached home increased 44.3 per cent to $780,600.

Nikki McAlpine has been trying to buy a three-bedroom home in the city for more than two years. She wants a bedroom for herself and her husband, one for their young son, and one for her mother, who is now living with them.

“It just makes it really discouraging for people like us,” she says of the market. “We’ve managed to get a lot of debts paid off, and we’ve got an approval now of $400,000 and there’s nothing.”

For a city this size, she's considering what was once an unthinkable commute.

“We’ve looked within a one-hour radius of Kingston, if we can at least get a home, we’re willing to drive to work and there’s nothing. There’s absolutely nothing,” she says.

The report shows about half of the buyers are coming from outside the region, the majority of them from Toronto, where housing prices are listed as the highest in the country now.

David Gordon, a Queen's University professor for the School of Urban Planning, says one big factor has been the pandemic. It has workers looking elsewhere for more affordable homes with more space.

“Kingston was always just a little too far, at two-and-a-half hours away, but remote work has made distance a little bit more achievable,” he says.

In Toronto, $400,000 listings include one-bedroom condos in North York. In Ottawa, a four-bed, two-bath attached home is listed in Orléans.

But in Kingston, a house listed at that price includes a three-bed, two-bath detached house in the city's desirable west end.

The report shows with a small number of houses on the market, there are bidding wars for the ones that are available, driving prices up.

Gordon says Kingston itself has proven to be an attractive draw.

“Kingston has a lot to like; it has one of the best downtowns of any medium city in North America, has a lovely historic core and a terrific waterfront.”

But all of those soaring values leave people like McAlpine out.

“Honestly feels like for someone like myself, first-time homebuyer, decent income, great credit, the good down payment? It shouldn’t be this hard. It really shouldn’t,” she says.