Halton Hills Housing Update - Ep. 180

Hi, everyone! Welcome to this week's Halton Hills housing update. This is a pretty surprising update this week and I really think it’s an indicator for where our market is heading into the back half of the year.

There were only six sales in Georgetown last week. It’s been super slow recently which is a bit surprising, but what’s even more shocking is just how many new listings we had this week. This week, Georgetown had 27 new listings. That is probably one of our highest weeks ever and that paired with very few sales tells me that we are heading towards a very saturated and not great fall market. Things could change if new inventory starts to slow down and buyer activity picks up in September. Another interesting thing that happened this week was that our other markets are still moving pretty consistently. So, in Acton this week, there were three sales and only two new listings. There were no sales and one new listing in Glen Williams. There were no sales and no new listings in Limehouse, but one sale and one new listing in the rural market. On top of the fact that Georgetown’s inventory is skyrocketing, we also had six properties terminate last week.

Now let's look at our active inventory. Last week we were at 136 active listings. We’ve been hovering around 130 for a few weeks now, but this week it jumped all the way up to 157 active listings. The last time Halton Hills had inventory that high was at the end of October 2022, which was our worst month in the last 18 months or so. This is not the highest number we’ve ever seen but it is the jump I’ve been waiting for. My mind is actually blown at the increase of new listings we saw in Georgetown this week. So, last week we had 74 active listings. This week we are up to 91 active listings and the last time we had this many listings was in November 2022. We’ve basically been on a decline in terms of inventory since then, so to see it up there again is surprising. I think we are really going to see our inventory climb in the coming months and the back half of this year could be really bad. Last year was dead and prices kind of plummeted. As soon as we see over 100 listings in Georgetown, I think that buyers are just not there and not as aggressive because there is so much to choose from.

Looking at our price points, under $800,000 is up slightly from nine to ten active listings. That price point is still moving. $800,000 to a million is also up slightly from 11 to 12 active listings. There really isn’t a ton available under a million right now because it is our price point that moves the most. I think I made a comment about two weeks ago about how when inventory starts to pile on in the one to 1.5 million range, that’s when the market is in trouble. So, one to 1.5 million had 26 active listings last week and is up to 38 active listings this week. During the peek we had over 50 listings in this price point and we’re not far off from that now. There was a time in May where those houses were selling rapidly but to go from 26 to 38 is really shocking to me. I also think this price point is the one that suffers the most when inventory starts to rise. 1.5 million plus is also up from 28 to 31 active listings.  This is the price point that people are always trying to fetch that really high premium for their properties and you see subdivision houses listed at $2 million. These homes are never going to move with inventory being this high. When inventory climbs, this price point does see the odd sale but it’s rare. If you are a seller over 1.5 million and you get an offer, I would take that very seriously because based on these numbers, if we continue to go where we were going, your houses will never move. Take your agent and the offer very seriously.

In Acton this week, we went from 19 to 17 active listings. Acton has been pretty steady with a couple of sales each week and things are looking ok there. Glen Williams is up slightly from seven to eight active listings. Limehouse is also up from two to three active listings and the rural market is down slightly from 34 to 33 active listings. The rural area is definitely not moving very much but that’s often because they are more expensive.

So, this week might be a real turning point in the market. We have not seen that gap in new listings versus sales yet this year. With our sales being so low pretty consistently the last few weeks, if we keep seeing a high number of new listings, our market definitely won’t be great this fall. We don’t normally see this many listings in August because that’s when people are busy and not listing their homes. So, to see this kind of activity in August is interesting and will probably continue. If we go into September with high inventory levels, we will have a very long back half of the year. So, if you are a seller, I would recommend you get ahead of this and get your house on the market. Prices will inevitably start to go down, especially since our interest rates are so high.

So, we’ll see what happens next week but unless this was some super random week, I do think we will start to see a trend of new listings for the next few months. I’ll be back on Tuesday, have a great week!