Halton Hills Housing Update - Ep.179

Hi, everyone! Welcome to this week's Halton Hills housing update. This week was another weird week in terms of numbers and I’m really not seeing any concrete trends. In Georgetown this week, we only had seven sales which is a pretty low number for Georgetown. August is historically a very slow month in terms of buyer activity, but only seven sales is again very low. What’s notable is that Georgetown had 17 new listings. It’s a huge number compared to what we’ve been seeing in the last few weeks so it will be interesting to see if inventory start to pile on here. Seventeen new listings is big and seven sales is small, so if we see four to five weeks of this, the market will be totally different. It’ll be interesting to watch.

In our other markets though, this was the first week in a long time that we had sales in all of them. In Acton this week, there were three sales which is a normal amount for Acton. There were three new listings as well so it was balanced there. Glen Williams had no new listings but two sales which is a huge week for the Glen. Limehouse had one sale and no new listings and the rural market had two sales and no new listings. Recently we have been seeing inventory climb in these markets, with very few sales, but this week was the complete opposite! It’s hard to know if it was just a one off week or if this is what we will continue to see.

So, there are a couple of other things to note. In all of Halton Hills, we had 15 sales which is pretty low. Only four of the sales got over asking. So, we are definitely seeing a shift in the market. We aren’t seeing bidding wars like we were a few weeks ago and to see so few properties sell over asking just shows we are in a different place than we were a few months ago. Last week I was talking about how a ton of properties terminated and didn’t re-enter the market. The same thing happened this week, just not as many. There were eight properties that came completely off the market this week. There were two that re-listed at a lower price. So, even though we are seeing high amounts of new listings, our inventory is not skyrocketing. So this is another trend that I’m watching closely.

All of Halton Hills is actually down this week from 137 to 136 active listings. So, definitely not a dramatic drop but considering how many new listings and few sales we saw, it’s interesting that the market hasn’t spiked. Another question is why did all the other markets see sales but no new listings? So, in Georgetown this week we did see a spike from 67 to 74 active listings. It isn’t a huge spike but it’s something to note because available inventory typically means prices softening. If we go into September and October with high listings, it’s likely that we will have the same back half of this year as last year, which is not good for sellers.

Looking at our active price points, under $800,000 is up significantly this week from five to nine active listings. There are actually four freehold properties available under $800,000 in Georgetown right now, which is normally not the case. $800,000 to a million is down from 13 to eleven active listings. This is no surprise because this price point is still the most active. We have tons of buyers still moving in this pocket. If you're a seller in that pocket, it’s likely that there will be some competition there. However, as we get higher up in price, so one to 1.5 million, things aren’t moving as much. This week it jumped from 21 up to 26 active listings. 1.5 million plus remained the same this week at 28 active listings, so no spike there. Half of these properties are listed over two million dollars so there are still people trying to get a price that buyers aren’t willing to pay right now.

Acton is down slightly from 21 to 19 active listings. That's still a pretty high number for Acton. Glen Williams is down from eight to seven active listings, which is pretty normal there. Limehouse is down from three to two active listings, so there are virtually no listings available in Limehouse. The rural market did see a dip from 38 down to 34 active listings. I thought this inventory was going to hit 40 but it’s down again. It will be interesting to see what inventory looks like a few weeks from now, especially in Georgetown. If it climbs in Georgetown, it’s likely that we will see these other markets kind of die off as we head into September. It happened last year and by the time we hit October, our market was very saturated and not very active.

Right now, I can't see a trend because our other markets are still seeing high sales, but the inventory is not quite picking up there. In Georgetown though, which has been seeing sales and not much inventory, it’s kind of flipping. So, my gut is telling me that we are going to have a similar fall market to last year. I do think that the buyers are cooling off a little bit, and I think that we could be in for a bit of a lull. Again, I am not the person anymore that thinks this market is going to crash. It's just supply and demand. I do think that buyers go in waves of like, “I'm going to wait and see what happens here”, especially with the interest rates. So, we're going to have to see what happens here and only time will tell!

I’ll be back next Tuesday, have a great week!