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Expert advice, market reports, and tips from the Niagara Region real estate professionals.
If there were any questions or doubts about whether the market would regain its hectic pace after the Christmas break, those doubts were quickly dissolved with the arrival of the sales figures for the month of January 2021.
The sales figures are in for December and they are truly remarkable, both in number of units sold and also in average sale price across Niagara. Normally we would see a significant slowdown in sales activity over the month of December. Things really slow by mid December and then pretty well shut down over the Christmas season. And while sales did definitely slow in December when compared to the previous month, that slowdown was not nearly as drastic as one might expect. Across the region we saw a total of 591 sales recorded in December. When compared to the 739 registered in November, that represents a reduction of 148 units or 20.03%. However, when we compare it to December 2019 where 375 sales were recorded, we see this years December sales are actually up by 57.6% year over year. That is truly remarkable. And it speaks to the underlying strength in the marketplace and the pent up demand that continues to drive the market upward.
As one would expect, the market experiences a slowdown in activity as we approach year-end. This year, the deceleration was much more gradual than it has been in past years. But things are definitely showing signs of taking a breather as we move into the latter part of November. Across the Region, a total of 739 sales were registered in November which is down 21.96% from the October’s 947 tally. Having said that, the number of sales was still up a respectable 24.0% from the 596 figure of November 2019.
As expected, moving into the late fall and early winter months, the market activity slows somewhat. People are simply less likely to buy a home in December and January as compared with April, May and June.
Moving on into the Fall, the market in Niagara continues to show remarkable strength. As one might expect, there is a slight dip in the number of sales recorded in August and September over the late spring and summer figures, but not much. In August, a total of 1003 sales were recorded across the region and in September the numbers had dropped slightly to 981. When compared to the record 1047 set in July, that represents a drop of 4.20% for August and a further drop of 2.19% in September, and that is in keeping with previous trends for this time of year.
Who would have ever forecast back in March that this COVID-19 virus would have been lingering on throughout the spring and summer months and right on into the fall. But that is certainly what has happened. And while the economy is struggling to its feet, a lot of sections of the economy have yet to rebound, and some never will.
As of this writing the actual sales figures are not in from the Niagara Association of Realtors. The sense however from being immersed in the market is that August continues strong both in number of sales and in average residential sale price. Normally the market tends to moderate slightly as summer comes to an end, and that may be the case again, but if so, the numbers I suspect will not show much of a slowdown from July and will certainly be up from August 2019.
While COVID-19 has had a profound impact on every aspect of the Canadian economy, it has not affected all industries in the same way or to the same degree. We have seen the retail section, especially malls totally shut down as we on a National scale, a Provincial scale and at a municipal level seek to contain the transmission of the disease. Restaurants, hair salons, all were temporarily mandated to close. And while other industries such as travel may have been allowed to continue, wary travellers and geographic barriers ground them almost to a halt.
The sales data is in for the month of May and it is really quite encouraging. Across the 10 regions we track monthly in Niagara there were 499 sales registered last month. And there are two ways of looking at it. It was down considerably from the 778 sales registered in May of 2019. That’s a drop of 35.9%. But at the same time that 499 figure is significantly higher than the 280 registered in April. Up 78.2%