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Expert advice, market reports, and tips from the Niagara Region real estate professionals.
It looks like the pundits were wrong! At least the data coming in from the first month of 2022 it would appear that way. From the vantage point of 2021, the forecasters were anticipating a slight moderation in the acceleration of house prices over 2022, coming in at around the 8%-10% range. Still a very healthy return on one’s investment but not the 20%-30% increases we’ve seen in 2020 and 2021. But look at what has happened.
Last month, you may recall, we saw a slight dip in the average sale price across the region, down in November to $745,970 from the $753,060 figure in October. A drop of less than 1%, but a drop nonetheless. And, in fact, that drop was reflected in every one of the municipalities we track across Niagara, with the exception of Welland. That drop we felt was not an indication of any sort of downward trend. Monthly fluctuations are often the norm even in an accelerating market. And, in fact, now that the December figures are in, we see the average price across the region has bounced back up to $752,221, pretty much where it was in October.
In order to get a somewhat clear understanding of the real estate market today, where it’s at and where it’s going, there are three measuring sticks I’d like to use. The number of units sold over the past month. The average sale price of homes across the region. And the total number of new listings registered in September. By assessing each of those numbers and then comparing them to past months and even past years, we should be in a position to spot trends and perhaps from that extrapolate where things are headed.
There is a lot going on right now. The COVID-19 Pandemic, which has been front and centre in the news and in all our lives for over a year and a half now, just won’t go away. New infection numbers are on the rise, alarmingly so when you consider the number of people who have been vaccinated. And this spike in infections holds true across the country and around the globe, giving rise to talk about a fourth wave and a possible renewed lockdown.
We’ve been tracking the market pretty closely month by month, especially since the brisk run we saw in 2017, the impact of the Government imposed foreign buyers spec. tax and mortgage stress test in the Spring of 2017, then the unprecedented world-wide pandemic commencing in the Spring of 2020. All these have had an impact to be sure. What we want to do, if we can, is try to examine market fluctuations in the light of these events, factoring in normal seasonal changes and see if we can see patterns and trends. The idea is to get an overview as to how the market has responded to date and see if we can get a handle perhaps on where it is going in the future.
Statistics show a slight decrease in both sales numbers and in average prices in May as compared to April, across Niagara.
It’s an interesting market at the moment. For the first couple months of this year we were extremely short on inventory. That coupled with a substantial rise in prices almost daily meant that there was very much a feeding frenzy among buyers.
Well, it’s been exactly one year now that we have been living under the cloud of COVID-19. What kind of a year has it been? Early in the year with the shadow of a pandemic on the horizon the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) predicted a dismal year ahead for real estate in Canada with sales drastically reduced and prices dropping by 10% - 15%. I am happy to report that they were wrong!