Halton Hills Housing Update - Ep.223

Welcome to this week's Halton Hills housing update. This update is totally horrific, especially if you are a Seller right now. So, looking at the unofficial numbers for August, which could slightly change over the next few days. Our average price of August 2023 was $1,290,000 and this month, our average price is $988,668. That is a drop of over 23% year over year. The average price has also dropped 19.5% since July when our average price was over $1,200,000. We had a lot of higher ticket homes sell last month but it’s interesting to see just how much the market has changed in one month. In July, 60% of the homes that sold were over a million dollars and in August, only 38% were over a million, which is why it makes sense that our average price has changed so drastically. We also had seven properties transact under $650,000 in August which is not typical for Halton Hills. Our pricing is definitely coming down and it is more than I thought it would be. I assumed our average price would be between $1,050,000 and $1,100,000 this month but $988,000 is really bad. There have only been two other months in the last two years when our average price has been under a million dollars, so this is not a good sign. 

Looking at what happened this week in Halton Hills, Georgetown only had four sales again this week which is a bad sign. I’m hoping this is just because it’s the last two weeks of summer and people are busy getting ready for school. We also have an interest rate announcement tomorrow morning so I’m hoping that will also help add some fuel to our market. The good news is that we only had nine new listings which is the first week in a long time where we’ve had single digit new listings. I think it’s also related to it being the end of the summer but we shall see! Acton had four sales this week which is a lot for them! There were also no new listings so this is good news for Acton. Glen Williams and Limehouse didn’t have any sales or new listings and the rural market had no sales and two new listings. Looking at the properties that terminated or changed their prices, there were two properties that re-listed at the same price, six that reduced their price, and 11 that came completely off of the market. We need more weeks of this in order for our inventory to reach a healthy level again. 

So, looking at active inventory, we are down from 214 to 206 active listings in Halton Hills this week. We haven’t been close to 200 listings in a long time so 11 properties coming off of the market this week was really good news for sellers. This number of listings is still really high, but it’s going in the direction we want it to be going in. Georgetown this week is up from 125 listings to 126. We did have a gap between sales and new listings but with properties coming off of the market, the gap wasn’t too big. Looking at our price points, under 800,000 is sitting very high at 14 active listings, up from 13. That is a lot of properties available under $800,000 but most are condo townhomes and condo apartments. Eight hundred thousand to a million is up this week from 30 to 31. We have so many properties available here and it’s not moving very quickly. One to 1.5 million remained the same at 53 active listings this week which is insanely high. Finally, 1.5 million plus felt from relief going from 29 to 28 active listings but that is still really high and it feels like nothing is moving. The stats today just confirm that if you have a home listed for 1.5 million plus and you get an interested buyer, you really need to consider their offer. It is very difficult to find someone with a budget over $1.5 million right now.

Acton had a huge week this week due to terminations and sales. They went from 30 down to 21 active listings and this is the lowest inventory we’ve seen in Acton since the start of April. If Acton goes below 15 then the market will likely start to get busy again. The benefit of Acton is that there are still a lot of lower priced homes available and because of the high interest rates, they’re a good option for buyers with a lower budget. Glen Williams stayed the same at seven and so did Limehouse. That is really high for Limehouse but a normal level for the Glen. The rural market remained the same at 45 which is super high. Realistically Georgetown and the rural market are the ones feeling it the most. They are super saturated compared to regular inventory levels and it’s causing homes to just sit. 

I’m hopeful that the lack of sales over the past two weeks are because it’s the end of the summer, but we will see how September goes. I am hoping there will be an interest rate drop tomorrow and if so, that it will add some fuel to the market. If numbers stay the way they are now, it will be a really bad back half of the year. I am honestly shocked by how low the average price was this month - 23% down year over year is insane! I also think that we will continue to see inventory hitting the market in September and October and hope that inventory will move, even if it's at a slower pace. I think prices will also continue to come down and I think we will see a max exodus at some point like we did in November and December of last year. We haven’t really followed any trend over the past few years though so it’s hard to know what will happen. So, I will be back next Tuesday to see what has happened over the first week of September! Have a great week.