Halton Hills Housing Update - Ep.161

Hi everyone! Welcome to this week's Halton Hills housing update.

We have lots to cover today, including March numbers, so let’s dive right in. So, our average price has climbed significantly versus last month and actually the last few months and I'm not surprised because the market's very busy right now.

So, looking at March of 2022, our average price was $1,438,000 and that was actually the peak of our market last year. Our highest average price came out overall in March of 2022, and we were on kind of a downward trend from there. So, looking compared to March of 2022, we are down over 22%. Our average price in March of 2023 is 1,116,420. We are over the 1.1 million mark, which I suspected and predicted that last week. I thought our average price would be much higher than we've seen because the million plus price point is starting to transact a little more rapidly than they've been. So, another thing to note is that in March of 2021, so two years ago, our average price was $1,140,000. That is almost on par with where we are now. So, it's very similar to where we were two years ago. Pricing is aligning with where we were two years ago, and that’s a huge drop from last year, but not a huge surprise given where everything has sort of landed here. Another notable thing is that we are up almost 9% since February of this year. So, basically we have been under 1.1 million average price since our September market update. And we are up almost 9% versus last month. The last time we saw an average price over 1.1 million was in September, so we are definitely in a better spot than we were in the fall for sellers right now. Demand is also weirdly picking up. Again, the thing that's keeping it very strong is our low inventory levels. We did see quite a bit of new stuff happening this week, but still our inventory levels remain relatively low compared to where we were last June, July, August, it's a completely different market. So, we did not have a ton of units sell last month. There were 65 units that sold versus last year we had 118 when the market was really hopping. But still, 65 is much better than the 40 to 55 that we were seeing in the months prior.

For sure the biggest conversation is the fact that our pricing is actually up pretty significantly since last month, and it's the strongest it's been in over six months. It's going to be very interesting to see where the market goes in April and May. We'll talk about inventory here in a second, but it's going to be interesting to see if March of 2023 is going to be the peak of this year's market? I would say probably, but we're going to have to see where inventory levels go and sort of where that demand lands.

Now moving on to last week's sales, in Georgetown this week we had twelve sales and that's not super high, but it's definitely not a low number, it's a good strong number. For a week in Georgetown, we did have 22 new listings which is a huge week. Anything over 20 new listings is strong. I feel like we are getting to the point where we start to see a lot of new listings every single week and that's really what slows the market down a bit. So, to see 22 new listings, if this continues to happen, we are going to feel inventory starting to rise. Looking at Acton, they had one sale, two new listings. Nothing crazy there. Glen Williams had no sales and two new listings. There were no sales and no new listings in Limehouse and the Rural Market had no sales but two new listings.

So, looking at our active inventory in all of Halton Hills, we are up this week from 106 to 116 active listings. It was a pretty big jump last week, and like I said, it just takes a couple of weeks of this to pile on and then we start to fulfill that buyer demand and the market starts to change a bit. That often happens in April and May. So week to week, this is going to be really interesting, I think, for the next eight weeks. Looking at Georgetown, we are up from 60 to 68 Active Listings. It is still half of the amount of listings that we had when we were at the peak of like 135 to 140 listings in Georgetown alone. So, our inventory is still sitting very low. I am going to be watching closely to if it starts to climb a lot more rapidly. Looking at our price points, under $800,000 jumped significantly this week from ten to 15 Active Listings. Nine of those are condo or condo townhomes, so there's still a bit of freehold in there, but lots of condo products coming up. 800 to a million is the only price point that went down this week. And again, that is our super strong, super active price point where we're seeing the most bidding wars, most over asking, all of that stuff. So, it went from 15 down to 14 active listings. So now a million to 1.5 million is up from 16 to 18 active listings, which is still a far cry from the 50 plus that we were seeing pretty regularly through the fall. 1.5 million plus is up from 19 to 21 active listings. It will be interesting to see if that 1.5 plus starts to get busier. It's a very struggling price point right now and so to see inventory climbing is no surprise, but it will be interesting to see if we start to see a lot more transacting above that 1.5, just given where the market is sitting.

So, Acton this week remains the same at eleven active listings. Glen Williams is up from seven to nine active listings. Limehouse remained the same at two and the rural market remained the same at 26. So in terms of our weekly numbers, what we're seeing is that we possibly are trending towards inventory, rising quite a few new listings this week and the sales were not even close to where those new listings were. So, a month of that and we start to really see things piling on. And as a reminder, in the peak we were at 180 to 190 listings in all of Halton Hills right now we're at 116. But, if you get four to six weeks of ten new listings being added every week, that is going to put us in a much higher inventory position.

So, I think every week the numbers are going to be really interesting here on out. And then the other notable conversation is March numbers. Our average price is up almost 9% since February, so we are seeing an increase right now. There is a ton of demand and it’s almost shocking how much demand there is and there are not enough listings right now to satisfy those buyers. It's a position we generally are always in in March. I didn't think it was going to happen this year but here we are. So, I am just now really looking forward to seeing where this market goes because it's in a spot that surprises me. So, I will be back next Tuesday. Have a great week!