New Condominium Apartment Price Report (NCAPR)

Detailed information for 2016 (pilot)

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Monthly

Record number:

5236

The New Condominium Apartment Price Report (NCAPR) is a pilot survey measuring changes over time in the contractors' selling prices of units in new condominium apartment buildings.

Data release - Pilot data will not be released.

Description

The New Condominium Apartment Price Report (NCAPR) is a pilot survey measuring changes over time in the constructors' selling prices of units in new condominium apartment buildings. The pilot survey is being conducted in 9 census metropolitan areas across Canada.

The data collected will be used to evaluate the feasibility of producing a monthly price index for this important segment of the new housing market.

Collection period: The collection process occurs over a two-week period beginning on the 16th of the reference month or the next business day if the 16th is not a business day.

Subjects

Construction
Construction price indexes
Prices and price indexes
Residential construction

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population consists of all units in new condominium apartment buildings which are listed for sale or have been sold in Canada.

The observed population includes a sub-set of all unit types sold in new condominium apartment buildings. The sub-set includes: one bedroom, one bedroom plus den, 2 bedroom, 2 bedroom plus den, and three bedroom units. Based on feedback from respondent testing and industry analysis, these unit types representative of the unit types commonly available for sale.

In addition, the observed population is limited to units in new condominium apartment buildings in 9 CMAs including Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria. These areas were assessed to have enough ongoing, new condominium construction and sales activity to support monthly pricing of units over time. Based on data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), these CMAs accounted 90.6% of absorbed units in new condominium apartment buildings in 2015. An absorbed unit is a housing unit that has been completed and sold.

Instrument design

The New Condominium Apartment Price Report (NCAPR) is an electronic questionnaire that was designed by Producer Prices Division in consultation with the Questionnaire Design Resource Centre. The questionnaire has been field-tested with potential respondents and their comments on the design and content have been taken into consideration.

The NCAPR collects information on contractors' selling prices for 5 types of units that are commonly offered for sale in new condominium apartment buildings. These prices exclude value added taxes such as the Goods and services tax, the Harmonized sales tax and the Quebec sales tax.

Developers are asked to report for up to 4 developments where they have any of the 5 targeted units for sale in new condominium apartment buildings. For each development, they select a building in which less than 70% of the targeted units have been sold. This ensures that selling prices can be collected repeatedly for the same development and building combination over time. For each building, developers are asked for the number of each targeted unit type that they sold in the reference month and for detailed information on up to 10 units with a maximum for each unit type. They are asked to report for units which were sold closest to the 15th of the reference month. If no units were sold, list prices are collected for the targeted unit types that were available in the reference month.

In addition to prices, the questionnaire collects detailed information on the characteristics of the condominium development, the building and the units for which the respondent has agreed to report. Information on the characteristics of the condominium units is used to evaluate the dollar value of the difference in the "quality" between the units for which prices have been reported and a base unit. Reported selling prices are adjusted for these quality differences so that data collected with the NCAPR can be used to measure "pure" price change over time for a base unit. A base unit is one with no floor or orientation premium and no purchased options.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design and a longitudinal follow-up.

While there are several stages in the selection of the sample, frames are only used in the first stage to identify potential in-scope condominium developers. Research and multiple information sources are used to identify active condominium developments in the targeted CMAs and the businesses responsible for these developments. The available sources vary by CMA and have included building permits data; municipal zoning and planning applications; as well as other private and public information sources on condominium developments. The resulting lists for each CMA include information on condominium developers, their new developments and some contact information.

The NCAPR has a multi-stage sample design. Representative units are selected into the sample at each stage based on judgement.

There are unique sampling units associated with each stage in NCAPR sample selection. These include condominium developers, as well as their developments, buildings and units.

In the first stage of sampling for NCAPR, a census is taken of the condominium developers identified in the frames for each CMA covered by the survey.

The remaining sampling stages occur when in-sample developers are contacted for the first time and when data are collected. During the initial contact, developers are asked to confirm that they are actively selling apartment condominiums units in the CMA for which they have been selected. If they are in-scope, they are requested to identify up to 4 developments in any of the 9 surveyed CMAs. Ideally, each development must have at least one condominium apartment building which has any of the 5 targeted unit types and these units are less than 70% sold.

The NCAPR collects information for one building per development. In cases when more than one building has 70% of the targeted units unsold, developers are instructed to choose the building with the most unsold targeted units.

For each building, developers are asked to provide characteristics and pricing information for up to 10 representative units. These can include up to 3 one bedroom units, 2 one bedroom plus den units, 2 two bedroom units, 2 two bedroom plus den units and 1 three bedroom unit. The exact number of units and their characteristics will vary each month depending on which units were sold or listed (if no units were sold) during the reference month.

Over time, condominium developers will enter and exit the market. In addition, new condominium developments will be launched when sales of existing ones are completed. As a result, the sample of developers, developments, buildings and units must be refreshed over time. Statistics Canada subject matter staff continuously review and add to the NCAPR sample of developers. Questions in the NCAPR help developers identify when and what criteria to use in choosing new condominium developments and buildings for price collection so that their reported selling prices continue to represent their current new condominium construction profile.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: August 16, 2016 to current

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and derived from other Statistics Canada surveys.

All new condominium developers in the sample are contacted to confirm that they are in-scope for the survey, to identify the condominium developments for which they will report, as well as to collect a respondent name and contact information. This pre-contact is done by computer-assisted telephone interview.

Computer-assisted telephone interviews are also used to collect the first month of data from new respondents. Interviewers request detailed information from developers for the condominium development, building and unit combinations for which they will report. They also collect prices for the targeted condominium units. Finally, they will ask for permission to pre-fill future electronic questionnaire(s) with information provided by the respondent for a previous period.

After this initial collection, respondents will be sent an electronic questionnaire to self-complete each month for each new condominium development for which they are reporting.

Telephone follow-up is done for failed edits and non-response.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .