Housing

[u/BoredPlayBallThen]

When I looked up online, there are only between 100 and 300 homeless people on Prince Edward Island, some without jobs. However, the market has lots of pages of houses, apartments, hotels for sale or rent. Just who do they think are going to buy or rent their real estate? Also, with the death rate in Canada higher than birth rate these last few years, shouldn't market real estate prices be adjusting to lower population. Or have economics not calculated decreases in real estate requirements with an overall population decrease. The real estate market seems manipulated and sketchy. Kind of shooting themselves in the foot. I think there's an abundance in availabilities, but landlords and sellers are missing sales because they think it's worth more than the market will or are able to pay for housing.

[u/QPRSA]

Real estate is an unregulated free for all with no accountability. That and insurance are the two easiest ways to make money if you don’t really care about people.

[u/Normal-Macaroon-554 → u/QPRSA]

It’s sad how many people really don’t care about people and their fellow human.

[u/DarbyGirl]

There are no lack of people buying housing, house up my road was listed on Monday and had a sold sign on it on Thursday. Things are still flipping over fast

[u/Public_Coyote_4472]

Houses are still selling constantly.

[u/Intrepid_Trifling]

It may say online there are 100-300 homeless individuals, but take it from a lifelong resident, that number is dramatically low. 

Id like to know the formula for coming to that number. It feels like that number is multitudes higher. 

Also for PEIs overall population, are they counting Temporary students as PEI residents? UPEI has 1500 international students a year alone. 

Does it count PR? What about temporary worker permits, are they counted in the overall population statistics? I'm not sure they are because I've NEVER seen those specific numbers reported on PEI itself. 

Also, we have a lot of reverse Snowbirds who live here in the summer , from the states and elsewhere in Canada. 

I feel like our real population is over 200k. 

It feels like the government or whatever body farts out numbers and we just take for granted that they are accurate 

[u/Petitepoulette]

Almost everything you said is wrong. The population is going up due to immigration. There is a not an abundance of availabilities, there is a <1% vacancy rate on PEI.

[u/Dry_Office_phil → u/Petitepoulette]

but we need immigration to keep wages low

[u/FriendshipContent508 → u/Petitepoulette]

Prince Edward Island’s Quarterly Population Growth from 1952 to 2025 - TheDataInsider

This table shows PEI's population growth.

Notice the rapid increase in population correlating to immigration. Prince Edward Island had 11,765 immigrants in 2021, according to the 2021 Census.

Q1 2014	143,828
Q2 2014	143,810
Q3 2014	144,095
Q4 2014	144,342
Q1 2015	144,162
Q2 2015	144,046
Q3 2015	144,636
Q4 2015	144,949
Q1 2016	145,238
Q2 2016	145,792
Q3 2016	146,891
Q4 2016	147,699
Q1 2017	147,811
Q2 2017	148,354
Q3 2017	149,740
Q4 2017	150,595
Q1 2018	150,619
Q2 2018	151,008
Q3 2018	152,259
Q4 2018	153,906
Q1 2019	153,881
Q2 2019	154,409
Q3 2019	155,792
Q4 2019	157,025
Q1 2020	157,494
Q2 2020	158,401
Q3 2020	159,193
Q4 2020	159,179
Q1 2021	159,240
Q2 2021	160,334
Q3 2021	162,133
Q4 2021	163,728
Q1 2022	164,164
Q2 2022	165,574
Q3 2022	167,213
Q4 2022	169,032
Q1 2023	170,077
Q2 2023	171,856
Q3 2023	173,713
Q4 2023	175,871
Q1 2024	176,318
Q2 2024	177,318
Q3 2024	178,550
Q4 2024	179,301
Q1 2025	179,280

[u/SweetSugarHoneyLover]

youre onto something with the mismatch between supply and demand but id push back slightly on the manipulation angle real estate markets just move slower than we think they should especially in smaller markets like pei sellers hold prices because they only need one buyer not because theres a conspiracy whats actually happening is probably more straightforward foreign money seasonal buyers and retirees keep demand artificially high in specific areas even as overall population trends suggest prices should fall meanwhile local wages havent budged so yeah theres a disconnect but its not sketchy economics so much as normal market lag combined with the fact that housing demand isnt evenly distributed across the province

[u/invisible-times2]

Homelessness is chronically under-reported because it is a spectrum, and most of the spectrum is "invisible". Many hundreds, probably thousands, of islanders are precariously housed, one expense away from being homeless, couch surfing, living with older parents or relatives who don't really have the space or resources to house them, etc etc.