Halton Hills Housing Update - Ep.176

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

Inventory has dropped again, so let’s take a look at the numbers. In Georgetown this week, there were 15 sales, which isn’t a crazy number but definitely above average. The bad news is that we only had eight new listings, which is low. These numbers are reinforcing the fact that we are in the summer time, when less people are listing their homes. We still have a strong buyer demand despite interest rates, but our supply is still not meeting demand, so the market will keep moving.

In Acton this week, we had two sales and four new listings. Acton has been sort of chugging along. Some weeks they have higher sales and not many listings, and then some weeks they have not many sales and tons of listings. It’s been a pretty steady market there this year, but it’s still moving. This is good news because when Georgetown slows down, Acton really slows down, and we haven't felt any of that yet. Glen Williams last week had three sales which is a huge week for Glen Williams. We didn't have any new listings there so inventory is going to be down. Limehouse had no sales and no new listings. The rural market saw no sales,but they had five new listings. So, there are lots of properties coming up in the rural market.

Looking at active inventory, we are down from 135 active listings to 131 active listings in all of Halton Hills. Georgetown went from 80 down to 74 active listings and it’s dipping because of the demand and sales we’re seeing. It's certainly not what it was in May, but we have lots of buyers who want to buy properties. So if we're not getting a ton of new listings, our inventory is just going to keep dropping, which is just going to result in prices not going down and demand still being really high, but let's break down the price points. Under 800,000 is down from five to four active listings. There is not a lot available in this price point. It moves really quickly when something does come on and that’s the same with 800 to a million. Last week we were at 20, which was a very high number, but it's already down to 15 active listings. That price point always is our most active and we see the most listings come up in that price point but the most listings sell as well. Looking at one to 1.5 million, this is a price point that historically starts to see things pile on when the market starts to shift, so I'm watching it closely. It has been climbing the last few weeks though. Last week we were at 23 and this week we are at 26 active listings. That's about half of where we were sitting last year in the peak when we were over 50 listings in that pocket. But we got down to, I want to around 9 to 11 listings in that price point and so there was not a lot available. Things have been climbing and that price point is interesting because people move up and down from those price points and so when inventory starts to pile on, it means people are trying to do moves but if it's not turning as much, then it is an indicator that prices may start to soften because people are less willing to transact in those higher million plus price points. Bit of a ramble there, but I hope you get what I'm saying.

So now looking at 1.5 million plus, that has been sitting very high. We were at 32 listings last week and we're actually down this week to 29 active listings. So, a few things in that price point are transacting. There is some movement there, but that inventory remains very high. Our average price of all of the listings in all of Halton Hills is over $1.9 million, so the far majority of properties that are on the market are sitting in a very high price bracket. So, with 29 properties there, it will take a long time before those can get purchased and bought up because people just are not transacting in our higher pockets like they do in the lower end.

Looking at Acton this week, last week we were at 14 listings. We are up slightly to 16 listings but not crazy high inventory in Acton. Glen Williams took a drop from nine down to six active listings. Limehouse was down from four to three active listings. There was a property that terminated and came off the market there and the rural market went up from 28 to 32 active listings. So, there is tons of stuff available in the rural market. Again, this goes with price points. Usually rural is that higher ticket and so I'm not surprised to see inventory sitting higher there.

Now that we are about halfway through July, the numbers are not surprising me. We generally do not go into ramp up with listing mode in the summer. The buyer demand is really keeping our inventory at bay, but we are just not seeing a lot of new listings hit the market. In total we had 17 new listings in all of Halton Hills last week. That's a very low number and it's just reflective of the time that we're in and it's following trend. I would say the sales we're seeing are higher than average in July. So with everything that's going on we want to say the market is going to dip here but without a lot of new listings and with buyer demand still here, we are not feeling that pinch in the market yet. You can tell that things are changing when you are negotiating properties and stuff but you're not feeling that pile on buyers pausing it's just not here yet. It may come in September or October when people get back into listing mode, but like I said for the like 6th time this market update, without a lot of new listings and with buyers still showing that they want to be active, our market is not going to tank anytime soon. I think the fall is when we could start to feel a shift so it's going to be really interesting to watch.

So, I will be back next Tuesday. Have a great week everyone.