Niagara Region Housing Market: Home Prices and Sales | August 2026

The Niagara Association of REALTORS (NAR) reports resale activity across the Niagara Region, from St. Catharines and Niagara Falls to Welland, Fort Erie and the smaller lakeshore towns. Its monthly release gives the MLS® HPI benchmark by home type, an all-homes average and the usual market totals. This report shows August 2026, released in September 2026. NAR also sets each month’s sales and listings against its five-year and 10-year averages for the same month. The Canadian housing market overview covers how each figure is measured.

Niagara home prices, August 2026

NAR, August 2026; change from a year earlier.

The average sale was $638,102 (-3.8%); so far this year it has averaged $645,329. The average sits 12% above the composite benchmark, which suggests the month’s sales leaned toward pricier homes than the benchmark’s typical one.

Sales and listings

Against NAR’s own averages for the month, sales were 3.0% below the five-year average and 19.5% below the 10-year average, and new listings were 13.0% below the five-year average; active listings, though, were 28.0% above the 10-year average. Sales for the year to date reached 4,117 (-2.9%). The stock of homes for sale is still large by Niagara’s long-run standard even after the drop in new listings.

Market balance

Sales divided by new listings came to 43.9%, and active listings divided by sales give the board’s 6.0 months of inventory. NAR puts the long-run norm for the month at 4.1 months, and the current figure is below CREA’s 6.4-month buyer’s-market threshold (reading inventory). NAR’s executive officer, Sarah Hart, described demand as subdued and said sellers had pulled back from listing, which is bringing supply down from near-record highs and moving the market slowly toward balanced territory.

Buying costs

At the composite benchmark, the smallest down payment allowed is $31,980 (5.6%), and the default-insurance premium on that mortgage is about $21,513, or 4.00% of the loan.

No Niagara municipality has its own transfer tax, so Ontario’s is the whole bill: $7,871 on a home at the benchmark. Ontario’s first-time buyer refund of up to $4,000 cuts that to $3,871 (Ontario calculator).

St. Catharines publishes a combined 2026 urban residential rate (city, regional and education) of 1.842187%. Ontario bills are on MPAC assessments that still use January 1, 2016 values, so the city’s own example uses its average residential assessment of $258,000, far below today’s prices: at that rate the city puts the bill at $4,752.85 a year. On a standard detached bungalow, the BMA Municipal Study’s 2025 survey, reproduced by the City of Barrie, recorded taxes of $5,042 in St. Catharines and $4,549 in Niagara Falls.

Income needed against Niagara incomes

Niagara’s composite benchmark home takes about $129,800 of household income at minimum down and $113,100 at 20% (method). The St. Catharines-Niagara census metropolitan area had a median household income of $77,000 in the 2021 Census (income year 2020), so the minimum-down income is 69% above that median. Niagara’s median is also below Hamilton’s $91,000, which narrows the region’s price advantage over its neighbour. Buying a Niagara apartment at NAR’s benchmark instead takes about $80,300.

Related pages

• Hamilton housing market
• Toronto housing market
• Ontario housing market
• Ontario mortgage affordability calculator