Halton Hills Housing Update - Ep.184

Hi, everyone! Welcome to this week's super interesting market update. The numbers this week are crazy and are going in the direction I thought they were going to, which is bad news for sellers.

So, let's look at what happened in Georgetown last week. We only had five sales which is very low. From the listings I have right now, I can tell you buyers are just unwilling to pull the trigger right now and there has been a massive slow down in buyer activity. Five sales when you have as much inventory as we do is a very bad number.

So, here’s the crazy thing. Georgetown had 30 new listings this week. I do not remember the last time there were that many new listings in one week and I’m honestly questioning if there even were that many in the last three and a half years that I’ve been doing this market update. Thirty is an astronomical number and I’ll have a few more comments on it later. In Acton this week, there were two sales which is good because when the market dies in Georgetown, it super dies in Acton. They also had seven new listings which is a huge number for Acton. Inventory is climbing everywhere. In Glen Williams this week, there were no sales and one new listing. In Limehouse there were no sales and no new listings. The rural market had one sale and five new listings which is another huge increase between inventory and sales.

So, here are my thoughts on all of this. In Georgetown, we had one property that sold at around 1.4 million, and then the next highest property was $816,000. Our higher price point stuff is completely dead in the water. No one is buying it, and we are in a situation. So again, out of our five sales, one was around 1.4 million and the rest were $816,000 and under, which is awful news. Another thing to note is that 28 properties terminated this week and either came completely off the market or changed their price. That is a HUGE amount. That is exactly what happened last year when the market started to change, and it happened because people were not getting the prices they want. So, out of the 28 that came off, 15 came completely off the market and the other 13 came back on with a new price- some higher because they tried to hold offers and it didn’t work, and the rest were at a reduced price from where they were. These numbers are just very interesting and this is the type of activity we saw when the market was really shifting last year.

So now looking at active inventory, I had a heyday looking at all these numbers and I even went back to 2022 and was kind of reviewing because a lot of sellers are still in the mindset of 2022 and to get people out of that is like near impossible. It's like, why can't they see that the market is changing? It's wild, right? So, I'm going to have a lot to talk about with these active listings, so just bare with me. So, our active listings in all of Halton Hills is up to 179 active listings this week. That is up from 153 last week which is a huge number. I do take out all of the new builds so there are 179 actual resale homes available right now. We also had 15 properties terminate, so imagine if that hadn’t of happened? We would be pushing our highest inventory in the last three and a half years since I've been doing these market updates. So, watching this really closely but it’s not good news. Also, the last time we had 179 new listings was the update I did on August 2^nd 2022. So, it’s been over a year since our inventory levels have been this high and we all remember how the back half of last year was. I think we are going in that direction.

In Georgetown this week, we are up from 92 active listings to 105. We are still decently far from where we came from in July of last year (around 140) but if new listings keep coming on in groups of 10 to 15, it won’t be long until we are there again.  The last time we saw 105 listings was on September 20^th 2022. It’s again showing where we came from and where we may be heading. So, looking at our price points, under $800,000 is up from seven to eight active listings. This price point is still moving. Eight hundred thousand to a million is up significantly from 12 to 19 active listings. So a lot more stuff available here. It’s also not moving as much as it has been in prior weeks. These next two price points are really sad, one to 1.5 million is up from 38 to 42 active listings. It has been a long time since we had over 40 listings in that price point so it’s super saturated and we will likely start to feel those prices come down. 1.5 million plus is up from 30 to 36 active listings, which is crazy to me. Subdivision houses in Georgetown are not worth two million dollars in this market. They are never going to move.

In Acton, inventory is up from 21 to 26 which is the highest I think I’ve ever seen which is not great news for sellers. Glen Williams is up slightly from five to six, so nothing crazy there. Inventory is always lower here. Limehouse remained the same at three and the rural market went from 32 to 39 active listings, which is the most I have ever seen. We have a boatload of rural properties available right now and they do typically come with a higher price tag and those buyers just aren’t here right now.

One thing I commented on earlier was pricing in 2022. So, I want to comment further on that now. Some sellers seem to have the mindset that their houses are worth what they were in the peak of last year but that’s just not the case. So, on February 2^nd 2022 we had our lowest inventory of the year. For this market update we had 39 active listings in ALL of Halton Hills. Right now we have 179. Supply and demand caused those prices in the peak, and now we have way more supply than demand. In Georgetown we only had 15 listings and now we have 105. There was practically NOTHING available last February. Acton also only had six listings and now it’s up to 26. Glen Williams was two, Limehouse was three and the rural market was only 13. The numbers are drastically different. These properties had virtually no competition and there were a ton of buyers. Interest rates were also 4% lower than they are now so this market is NOTHING like 2022. I think people are starting to realize that but we really need to adjust our expectations. When interest rates settle we may see prices bounce back to levels we saw in 2022. Unfortunately for sellers, this kind of activity, like low sales, high inventory, and high new inventory is going to equate to prices softening and I think it’ll be at a pretty significant rate.

So, this update was a wild one for me. I was looking at the numbers and I couldn’t believe it. I knew this was going to happen in September but we’re officially here. It’s going to be very interesting to see where inventory goes in October. If you are a seller you need to really adjust your expectations right now because the market is not in your favour. If you have a buyer willing to put an offer on your property, you should probably exhaust that to the max because there aren’t a lot of buyers that are willing to put offers on properties. I went through a ton today so if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out! I will be back next Tuesday, have a great week!