Eastern Ontario Rural Housing Supply: What 6 Searches Show

Quick answer: Public board-level data show a real price gap between the two real estate boards that cover rural Eastern Ontario. The Rideau-St. Lawrence Real Estate Board, which covers the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, Lanark, and part of Dundas County, reported an August 2026 average price of $566,451 and a single-family benchmark price of $558,200. The Ottawa Real Estate Board, whose territory includes Ottawa's rural east, west, and south areas, reported a July 2026 average price of $683,308 and a single-family benchmark price of $725,000. The two reports describe two different markets, not two price tiers of the same one.

Rural Eastern Ontario is not covered by a single real estate board. Two separate boards publish their own monthly statistics for the area, and each board's numbers describe only its own territory. This note uses only the figures each board has already published for public use, and it keeps the two reports side by side rather than blending them into one number.

How these two reports compare

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) publishes monthly statistics for each member board, including average price, the MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) benchmark, sales volume, and active listings. These figures are released for public reference and are the appropriate source for a market comparison, as opposed to a private search of individual listings. The table below places the two most recent board reports side by side.

The two reports are not from the same month, which is normal since each board releases its own statistics on its own schedule. The figures are still useful side by side because they describe the same general region at close to the same point in time, and the gap between them is large enough that a one-month offset does not explain it.

What the Rideau-St. Lawrence board reported

The Rideau-St. Lawrence Real Estate Board covers the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, Lanark, and part of Dundas County, an area that includes the townships many buyers search for when they say they want Smiths Falls, North Grenville, Augusta, Elizabethtown, North Dundas, Montague, or Merrickville-Wolford. For August 2026, the board reported 241 home sales, a 6.6 percent decrease from the same month a year earlier. The average sale price was $566,451, up 1.1 percent year over year. The MLS® HPI composite benchmark was $540,300, up 1.7 percent year over year, and the single-family benchmark was $558,200, up 1.8 percent.

New listings were unusually high for the month, at 501, a 24.6 percent increase that the board's own release described as the largest number of new listings added in an August in the board's history. Active listings stood at 1,255, up 13.9 percent year over year, and months of inventory rose to 5.2, up from 4.3 a year earlier. Months of inventory is a standard way of describing how long the current stock of listings would last at the current pace of sales if no new listings were added, and a higher number generally points to more choice for a buyer and more patience required from a seller.

The Rideau-St. Lawrence board's release also breaks its benchmark down by property type, which is useful for a buyer comparing housing forms rather than reading a single area-wide figure. Alongside the single-family benchmark of $558,200, the board reported a townhouse and row-unit benchmark of $521,500, down 0.8 percent year over year, and an apartment benchmark of $269,500, down 1.5 percent year over year. The gap between the apartment benchmark and the single-family benchmark inside this one board's own territory, roughly $288,700, is itself larger than the gap many buyers assume exists between a rural township and a nearby city.

What the Ottawa Real Estate Board reported

The Ottawa Real Estate Board's territory includes the city's urban core as well as its rural east, west, and south areas. For July 2026, the board reported 1,325 home sales, essentially flat compared to July 2025. The average sale price was $683,308, down 1.6 percent year over year, while the year-to-date average price through July was $699,761, down 0.4 percent from the same period in 2025. The MLS® HPI composite benchmark was $634,000, down 0.5 percent year over year, and the single-family benchmark was $725,000, up 0.7 percent.

Active listings in the Ottawa board's territory stood at 4,678, up 9.3 percent year over year. Because this board's report spans the full city and its surrounding rural areas together rather than separating them, its average price and benchmark reflect that entire territory, not a rural-only figure. The board's own release cautions that an average sale price is useful for tracking trends over time but should not be read as a statement about what any specific property is worth.

Why the two boards show different numbers

A board's average price and HPI benchmark reflect everything sold inside its territory in that period, so the mix of properties changes the number as much as the underlying market does. The Ottawa board's territory includes urban and suburban housing stock alongside its rural areas, which tends to pull its figures toward urban and suburban pricing. The Rideau-St. Lawrence board's territory is made up of townships and smaller communities without a comparable urban core, which is one reason its average price and benchmark sit lower.

Distance from Ottawa, typical lot size, and the prevalence of private well and septic systems instead of municipal services are commonly cited factors behind price differences between an urban-adjacent board and a township-based board, though this comparison is limited to what the two board reports themselves state and does not attempt to isolate the effect of any single factor. A household comparing the two figures should treat them as two separate markets with two separate supply pictures, not as a discount scale running from one to the other.

Property type matters as much as location

Neither board's headline average price or benchmark distinguishes a detached home on a standard lot from a farm, a waterfront property, or vacant land, so the same regional report can sit above or below what a buyer actually experiences depending on what kind of property they are searching for. A buyer comparing a farm listing, a vacant lot, and a detached house against a single area-wide average price is comparing three different products to one blended number.

The published page on acreage near Kemptville and North Grenville addresses the land-specific side of this question for that township, and evaluating a country estate and its acreage covers the separate question of house plus land, which a single board average cannot answer either.

Waterfront property raises the same issue in the other direction: it is not reported as its own line in either board's headline release, so a waterfront search can sit well above the board-wide single-family benchmark without that premium ever appearing in the regional figure. The separate discussion on waterfront home costs in Eastern Ontario covers that premium directly, and a buyer or seller working with a waterfront property should treat the board-wide figures in this note as background context rather than a price reference for that property type.

What this means for a buyer leaving the city

A buyer comparing an Ottawa-area price point with a township price point is comparing a market with a $725,000 single-family benchmark to one with a $558,200 single-family benchmark, a gap of roughly $167,000 at the benchmark level. That gap does not by itself say anything about any specific property, but it is a reasonable starting expectation for the kind of difference a household moving from an urban or suburban Ottawa search into the Rideau-St. Lawrence board's territory may encounter at the benchmark level.

The published note on why some Ottawa buyers look at Kemptville for space covers the lifestyle and space side of that move. This section adds only the board-level price context: two boards, two benchmarks, and a documented gap between them as of their most recent releases.

What this means for a seller in the townships

A seller in the Rideau-St. Lawrence board's territory is working inside a market where new listings rose sharply in August 2026 and months of inventory climbed from 4.3 to 5.2 year over year. Rising months of inventory generally signals more competition among sellers for the same pool of buyers, which is a different condition than a market where inventory is tightening. Average price in that territory still rose 1.1 percent year over year even with more new listings on the market, which is a detail worth noting rather than a conclusion about any one property's value.

A seller should also keep in mind that this board's average price and benchmark are calculated across every property type and sub-area inside its territory. A specific township, street, or property type can sit above or below that board-wide figure, and only a review of comparable recent sales for that specific property type and location can narrow the range further.

A checklist for reading any board report

• Confirm which board's territory actually contains the property or area in question, since a township can be inside a different board than a nearby city.
• Check the reporting month for each figure being compared, since boards do not always release on the same schedule.
• Note whether the figure is an average price or an HPI benchmark, since the two are calculated differently and can move in different directions in the same period.
• Separate property type where possible, since a single-family benchmark, a townhouse benchmark, and an apartment benchmark describe different products.
• Treat months of inventory and new-listing counts as supply signals, not as price predictions on their own.
• Remember that a board-wide figure is a regional summary, not a valuation of any specific property.

What these reports cannot tell you

A board's average price and HPI benchmark cannot say what a specific property last sold for, how long a specific listing has been on the market, or what a specific seller will accept. They cannot distinguish a detached home from a farm or a vacant lot within the headline figure, and they cannot tell a buyer or seller what price a particular property should carry. CREA's own release on the Ottawa board's figures makes this point directly: an average sale price is useful for tracking a trend over time, not for valuing an individual property.

These reports also describe each board's territory as a whole. Within the Rideau-St. Lawrence board's territory, a specific township can sit meaningfully above or below the board-wide average, and the same is true of specific areas inside the Ottawa board's territory. A board-level report is the right starting point for understanding a region. It is not a substitute for a review of comparable sales for a specific property.

Deb Driscoll, Jaime Peca, and Luke Geleynse of the Driscoll-Peca Real Estate Team at REAL Brokerage work with buyers and sellers across both of these board territories and can walk through what a specific property or area has actually seen, beyond the regional averages described here.

Questions this comparison can answer

Which real estate board covers the rural townships near Kemptville and Smiths Falls?

The Rideau-St. Lawrence Real Estate Board covers the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, Lanark, and part of Dundas County, which includes townships such as North Grenville, Smiths Falls, Augusta, Elizabethtown, North Dundas, Montague, and Merrickville-Wolford.

How much higher is the Ottawa board's single-family benchmark than the Rideau-St. Lawrence board's?

As of their most recent releases, the Ottawa Real Estate Board's single-family benchmark was $725,000 and the Rideau-St. Lawrence Real Estate Board's single-family benchmark was $558,200, a difference of roughly $167,000.

Is the Rideau-St. Lawrence board's market tightening or loosening?

Its August 2026 release shows new listings up 24.6 percent year over year, the largest August total in the board's history, and months of inventory rising from 4.3 to 5.2. Both of those figures point toward more supply relative to recent sales activity, rather than a tightening market.

Sources: Canadian Real Estate Association, Rideau-St. Lawrence Real Estate Board statistics, August 2026; Canadian Real Estate Association, Ottawa Real Estate Board statistics, July 2026.