Verified real estate experts in Kingston

The Kingston real estate market — Aug 2026

Kingston sits where Lake Ontario narrows into the St. Lawrence, a limestone city that was briefly Canada's capital and has since built its economy on three steady employers: Queen's University, a cluster of hospitals and the federal correctional and military presence. Those are recession-resistant payrolls that do not swing with the business cycle the way manufacturing or resource towns do.

In August 2026, the MLS® benchmark price in Kingston stood at $550,100, up 0.2% year over year. The average price, all property types combined, was $612,691 (+2.7% year over year). There were 239 sales during the month, the same as a year earlier. With 5.8 months of inventory, the market is balanced by the standard board convention (under 4 months: sellers; 4 to 6: balanced; over 6: buyers). Source: Kingston and Area Real Estate Association (KAREA), August 2026.

The gap between the benchmark and the average is worth understanding before reading either as the price of a house here. The benchmark tracks a typical property from month to month; the average simply divides total dollar volume by the number of sales, so a handful of waterfront or historic-district transactions pulls it well above what a typical buyer pays. When the two diverge, the benchmark is the better guide for budgeting and the average is the better guide to how varied the local stock is.

One caveat about geography: these figures cover the entire jurisdiction of the Kingston and Area Real Estate Association, not the city limits. The association publishes no municipal breakdown, and Payotte does not manufacture one, so treat the numbers as an area gauge rather than a Kingston-proper measurement.

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