Halton Hills Housing Update - Ep.165

Hi, everyone! Welcome to this week's Halton Hills housing update. This week’s update is a good one. I have April numbers and some crazy week to week numbers to report too!

So, let’s look at April numbers. These are still unofficial because there could be a couple more sales that trickle in but by now, a few days in to May, we should be close to official numbers. So this April, our average price was slightly down from March to $1,065,000. That is down 4% since March, but up about 4% since February. We’re teetering month to month at this point, but something notable is that in April, we had 87 units sell, which is a massive number. In March we only sold 68. Half of the units that sold in April, so 46 of them, sold for under $1,000,000. Our under a million price point is SO busy right now. With so many sales under a million, it’s not surprising to see our average price a little bit lower. Another factor to our average price being down a bit is that we only had six of the 87 properties that sold, sell for over 1.5 million. So, with a massive number of homes transacting under $1,000,000, it’s no surprise that our average price isn’t being pulled up. In March we saw quite a few sales over $1,500,000, which really helped pull the price up.

Overall, 87 units sold in one month is massive. Last April we sold 89, so we’re almost exactly where we were one year ago. We’re also almost exactly where we were in April 2021 in terms of average price, which was #1,069,000. So, we are really similar to where we were two years ago but I do think our pricing is up. The sheer volume of houses that sold under $1,000,000 had such a big impact on our average price. In April though, we had 32 properties sell over asking! It just shows that there is a ton of demand right now.

So, let’s look at the real interesting piece this week- last weeks sales and new listings. This is just crazy! I can’t believe where the market is right now. Georgetown 18 sales last week, which is not surprising. We’re seeing very high sales weeks lately. However, we only had eight new listings and only one of them was under $1,000,000. Our busiest price point is not seeing enough listings and we’re not seeing the level of new listings that we would normally be seeing. It just causes more supply and demand issues, and it’s going to keep our market strong. Acton had three sales and two new listings this week, which is very typical for Acton. There were no sales and one new listing in Glen Williams. Limehouse had no sales and no new listings, and the rural market had two new listings and no sales.

So, looking at our active inventory in all of Halton Hills, we were at 113 last week, and we are down to 99 active listings in all of Halton Hills. I cannot believe we are under the 100 mark, and I really didn’t believe this is where we would be. We normally see inventory picking up right now, and it’s just not happening. Buyers are out so it’s not surprising but this is a very dramatic drop! In Georgetown last week, we had 62 active listings. This week we are down to 52 active listings. The last time we saw a number like this was the April 12^th update of 2022, and there were 53 active listings. Since then, our inventory has been over that number. So in over a year, we have not seen 52 Active Listings in Georgetown, but here we are! I am shocked. I don’t think anyone expected our market to be this strong and it’s just going to cause prices to increase. There is nothing for people to buy so there is a ton of competition. I know it didn’t reflect in our average price this month, but it’s going up for sure- there’s no doubt! It’s just the law of supply and demand.

So looking at our active price points, under 800,000 is down from 8 to 6 active listings. $800,000 to $1,000,000 went from 14 active listings to 5. Five active listings between $800,000 and a million is practically nothing, and that’s our busiest price point. I can tell you that because I had a listing in that price point, and I had buyers compete in that price point. It is BUSY! There are dozens and dozens of buyers looking for homes in that price point, and they just don't exist right now. So, we're going to see some pretty high prices coming back in that pocket. I think the only price point that was up this week was one to 1.5 million, which is up from 13 to 15 active listings. We’re seeing a ton of transactions happening in this price point. The 1.5 million plus price point is down slightly from 27 to 26 active listings. So, lots of listings available in that price point, but every other price point is moving very quickly.

In Acton we are down from 11 to 9 active listings. Glen Williams is down from 8 to 7 active listings. Limehouse remained the same at one and the rural market is down from 31 to 29 active listings. Another reason for our low inventory is that we had properties terminate and not re-enter the market last week. So, high sales, low new listings, and houses terminating are all contributing factors to our inventory drop.

Overall, I think the April average price is not fully reflective of what’s happening in the market, because I do feel like it was higher and busier than March. It’s really the sheer volume of sales under $1,000,000 that contributes. One million to 1.5 million is active though, and there was a time where you could not sell a property between one and 1.5 million, so it’s good to see those properties transacting when priced right. I actually saw a property this week that was priced at $1,299,900 and I didn’t think it was under priced and it sold the same day with no conditions for $25,000 over asking. So, it just confirms that there are aggressive buyers out there.

If you have been thinking about selling your home and your in a position where you can keep your mortgage rate the same or you have a secondary property you could move to, it is such a good time to be thinking about selling if you need to get out of your house. The activity we are seeing is not normal for this time of year and inevitably, people are going to start hearing about how busy it is and will start putting their homes on the market. It always happens.

So, this is a surprising start to May for me, but I think that as a seller, if you are going to need to sell in the coming months, you should really be thinking about putting your house on the market ASAP, while our inventory numbers are as low as they are and our demand is as high as it is. So, I can't wait to see what happens in May. I think we still are going to sit with pretty low inventory in May. Whether it continues to teeter is a good question, but I would be shocked to see another big drop in inventory like we did this week. Who knows at this point! So, I’ll be back next Tuesday with this week’s numbers. Have a great week!