Drummondville Q3 2026: Scarcity Is Easing, Just Not in Prices Yet

In their October 14, 2026 release, the regional board for Estrie, Mauricie and Centre-du-Québec (CIEMCQ) and QPAREB, the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers, headlined Drummondville this way: scarcity is easing gradually. The key word is gradually. Listings jumped 50%, yet the single-family median price still rose 11%. Our article on Drummondville's sale-to-list ratio by price range showed where negotiating room is concentrated. This one explains the order in which indicators move as a market comes out of scarcity, and why prices are the last to react.

Drummondville's Q3 2026 numbers

According to the joint CIEMCQ and QPAREB release, based on Centris data:

• 220 residential sales, up 5%, the first increase after three quarterly declines, driven mainly by single-family homes (up 5%) while other categories remained limited;
• 389 active listings, up 50% year over year, a third consecutive quarter of rising supply;
• a single-family median price of $445,000, up 11%, one of the strongest gains among Quebec CMAs;
• an average of 46 days to sell a single-family home, three days more than a year earlier.

The release concludes that market conditions remain advantageous for sellers. CIEMCQ president Marc-Antoine Benoît notes that buyers in Drummondville now enjoy a wider choice than in recent years, while sought-after properties still find buyers quickly.

Easing scarcity: the order in which things move

When a market comes out of a period of scarcity, indicators do not react all at once. The usual sequence looks like this:

• listings rise first, as more sellers come to market or homes stay listed longer;
• selling times lengthen next, as buyers have more options to compare;
• asking price reductions become more frequent;
• sold prices react last, because they record deals that have already been negotiated.

Drummondville is clearly at the start of that sequence. Supply has moved sharply for three quarters. Selling time is only just lengthening, by three days. The median price has not turned yet.

Signal one: listings

A 50% jump in listings in one year is the clearest sign that scarcity is receding. But it needs to be set against sales. A rough calculation, not an official indicator from the release: with 389 listings and 220 sales in the quarter, about 73 sales a month, the stock equals a little over 5 months of sales. Backing out last year's figures from the published changes gives about 259 listings against about 210 sales, a little under 4 months.

Supply has therefore grown much faster than sales. The release does not publish an official months-of-inventory figure; this homemade ratio only measures the gap between supply and demand.

Note that sales themselves rose 5%. Scarcity is not easing because buyers are vanishing, but because supply is growing faster than they are. That sets Drummondville apart from several larger markets, where QPAREB's provincial release describes less active buyers.

Signal two: selling time

The average selling time for a single-family home rose to 46 days, three more than a year earlier, which the release still calls relatively short. It is a first, modest move, but in the expected direction: with more homes to compare, buyers take a little longer.

Neighbouring Trois-Rivières, covered in the same release, shows the same sequence. Listings there rose 54% and single-family selling time lengthened by six days to 32, while conditions remain very favourable to sellers. In both markets, supply moved before selling times, and selling times before prices.

Last signal: prices, and why they are still rising

A $445,000 median, up 11%, may seem to contradict the idea of easing scarcity. It does not, for two reasons.

First, a sold price records a negotiation that happened weeks earlier, in a market where supply was tighter. It describes the recent past, not today's conditions.

Second, a quarterly median depends on which homes sold. If this quarter's single-family sales were on average larger or better located, the median rises even if comparable homes did not gain value. We covered this, the mix effect, in a separate article. With a few hundred sales per quarter, it weighs more than in Montreal.

The release does not let us separate the two effects. It only shows that prices have not yet registered the return of supply.

Why sales rising is the unusual part

Across Quebec, the Q3 2026 story is one of fewer sales. QPAREB reports 20,935 transactions province-wide, down 7%, as supply grows and buyers become less active. Drummondville bucks that trend: sales rose 5% after three quarterly declines, alongside Trois-Rivières and Sherbrooke, which the joint release describes as three markets resisting the slowdown seen elsewhere.

This matters for how scarcity eases. In markets where buyers step back, rising listings and falling sales push conditions toward balance from both sides at once, and prices can soften quickly. In Drummondville, supply is doing almost all the work while demand holds or grows. That makes the transition slower and explains why the release talks about scarcity easing gradually rather than a market turning.

It also means the pace of change depends heavily on whether buyer activity holds up. If sales keep rising, the extra listings will be absorbed and the shift could stall. If sales stall while listings keep climbing, selling times should lengthen faster, and price growth would likely follow with a lag.

What it means if you are selling or buying in Drummondville

If you are selling, conditions remain in your favour, but competition has grown sharply: there are 50% more listings than a year ago. Pricing off the 11% median gain would be risky. Recent comparable sales for your area and property type are a better starting point.

If you are buying, your first gain is choice. Sought-after homes still go fast, but longer selling times leave a bit more room to compare, get an inspection and negotiate conditions.

If the sequence continues, upcoming reports should show selling times lengthening further before any clear slowdown in prices. Those are the two indicators to watch.