Builders and sellers of prefabricated mini- and modular homes on P.E.I. say the pandemic has caused a surge in demand and shows no signs of slowing.

In a market where the population is growing, real estate prices are up 25 per cent and the construction industry is booming with long wait-lists, a mini-home may seem like a solution, but those in the industry say they've been affected as well.

"It's been a wild, wild year. This year, last year, it's been absolutely crazy. It's the busiest I've ever seen it," said Stacey Mills at Traveller's Rest Mini Homes.

"This year, we're at the max right now. We're booking into 2022."

Mills has been with the company for 21 of its 36 years in business. She said what the company is seeing now is unusual, and orders for next year are already filling up.

"Some people are running into not being able to afford to build a home with the price of lumber and stuff like that — even the cost of buying a home through real estate is a little high," she said. 

"A lot of retirees that are moving back home from like Ontario and places like that and just people downsizing in general. They want something a little smaller, a little more easier to maintain and handle." 

The business would have sold 50 to 60 homes a year before the pandemic. This year it sold 100, including all the model homes on its property. 

"I'm sure we could have sold more over that. It's just that we're at the max for this year."

The business brings its homes from suppliers in New Brunswick, where they're built and then trucked across the bridge.

"Their demand as well is high. So that's some of the reason that we're kind of getting pushed into 2022, because they're trying to fill everybody else's orders as well, along with ours," Mills said.

"I would say what's changed the most is wait times since the pandemic started ... typically, four months, we'd get everything turned around. Now you're looking at probably 10 months," said Joel Leger, president of Supreme Island Homes in Charlottetown.

"A lot of people would prefer getting in quicker or earlier, but they certainly understand because it doesn't matter where you go now, you're expected to wait longer than before."

In Slemon Park, Matthew Darrach is also feeling the soaring demand, from folks looking to retire, downsize or move to P.E.I.

He owns Elite Homes, which builds mini- and modular homes on P.E.I., the only company to do so.

"It's become difficult. It's hard to get your hands on materials. It's getting better now. But for a solid year, it was hard," he said.

"The main challenge we have now is labour, and it's hard to get labour to come into the trades and stay in the trades."

Darrach is currently pricing orders for spring 2022, but said if all those customers decide to proceed, they'll be waiting about a year and a half.

"It seems like locals have never had to deal with this type of timeline during builds. Anywhere else I've built in Canada, it takes a long time to build," he said. 

"The pandemic has turned it into a bigger problem than before."

As a business owner, Darrach describes the pandemic as "exhausting" and said it's brought some new challenges to his industry of 12 years, all exacerbated by the inability to find labourers.

"I haven't experienced like it is here anywhere else and I've been in multiple cities, in multiple provinces, and I've dealt with multiple people from multiple provinces while I was there," he said. "I've never even heard or seen anything like this."

All three suppliers agree that the rising demand shows no signs of slowing down, but they hope production can be increased to better meet it.

"I really can't see it slacking off, so if I guess if people are looking for homes, they really need to jump on the bandwagon," Mills said. 

Nicola MacLeod grew up on P.E.I., where she is now a multi-platform reporter and producer for CBC. Got a story? Email nicola.macleod@cbc.ca

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