Real Estate News

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“We definitely saw a real estate market hit by the winter chill,” said RAHB CEO George O’Neill. “Both listings and sales were considerably lower than the 10-year average for the month of January. Even so, with more listings at the end of the month than last year, we have a more balanced market, with a sales-to-new listings ratio of 56.7 per cent and over three months of listing inventory for the residential market.” Seasonally adjusted* sales of residential properties were 30.6 per cent lower than the same month last year, with the average sale price up 4.2 per cent for the month. Seasonally adjusted numbers of new listings were 6.7 per cent higher than January of 2017.

The REALTORS® Association of Hamilton-Burlington reported 15,565 all-property sales through the Association’s Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) System in 2017, 5.9 per cent fewer sales than in the record-breaking 2016. Even while sales were down from the previous year, the total dollar volume of sales reached a new high of $8,972 billion, which resulted in a 14.4 per cent increase in all-property average sale price for the year. “The real estate market in 2017 was notable for the abrupt change through the spring,” noted RAHB CEO George O’Neill. “The market went from a strong, prolonged seller’s market, where the average time to sell a property was 14 days, to a more balanced market where buyers had more time to view and compare properties before putting in an offer to purchase. ” In the residential market, listings were up 16.4 per cent compared to the previous year and sales were down six percent. “Each of the first four months of year had record sales for those months,” added O’Neill. “At the time, there were few listings on the market, with less than a month of inventory. In April, however, we saw the first glimpse of a turnaround, when we had more listings than average come onto the market. That did not translate into immediate relief for the market, as we still had record sales for the month. It was after that point we began to see higher-than-average new listings and lower-than-average sales.”

We continue to see a healthy number of listings coming onto the real estate market, which is a welcome relief from the low inventory earlier this year, said RAHB CEO George O’Neill. Although sales are down compared to last year, they are still higher than average, which means there are also still lots of buyers.

Two months ago, in September, we saw a dip in what had been a weakening seller’s market, and then a bit of a rebound in October as is often expected. This past month, in November, the sales-to-new-listing ratio was around 67 per cent over the entire month, but is now trending downward toward a balanced market.

Now that we are going into the year-end holiday season, we expect to see a bit of a lull – that is the traditional rhythm of the real estate market, noted O’Neill. We continue to urge buyers and sellers to contact a REALTOR® to learn more about new mortgage guidelines coming into effect on January 1, 2018 – the new guidelines may affect their purchase or sale.