Halton Hills Housing Update - Ep.226

Welcome to this week's Halton Hills housing update! We had a record breaking week last week, but not in a good way. So, let's look at the numbers. Georgetown had 11 sales last week, which is a normal week for Georgetown. The silver lining here is that sales haven’t completely dropped off and we are still seeing some buyer activity. The bad news is that our inventory levels are incredibly high. Georgetown had 20 new listings this week and that is crazy high. If we continue to see this, it will be really bad for Sellers who need to sell their homes. In Acton this week there was one sale and four new listings, so inventory is rising here as well. Glen Williams had one sale and one new listing. Limehouse had no sales and one new listing and the rural market had one sale and five new listings. So, the trend this week is lots of new listings. We had 31 new listings in all of Halton Hills and only 13 of them were less than a million dollars. There were also three that are over two million dollars, so we have a lot of higher priced listings coming on to the market. Our sales this week were pretty split, half over a million and half under. So, looking at properties that terminated or reduce their prices, we only had six properties come off of the market this week, which is not enough. Six people also reduced their price and two people attempted offer nights that didn’t work, so one re-listed higher and one re-listed at the same price. So, the real conversation this week is our inventory levels. I started off by saying it was a record breaking week and that is because we are officially at our highest inventory ever in Halton Hills. We are at 232 active listings, and prior to this, the highest we got to was 230 in October of 2023. The worst part is that I really don’t think it is going to stop anytime soon. I remember wondering last year if inventory was going to hit 250 listings and that seemed impossible, but if we don’t see terminations start to increase and new listings slow down, I think that is a possibility. Georgetown this week hasn't quite hit it’s max, but they're climbing.

So, Georgetown went from 132 to 138 active listings this week. There is a ton of new listings hitting the market and I suspect that we will reach 140 listings in the next week or two, which was our previous record. Looking at our price points, under $800,000 is down slightly to 14. Eight hundred thousand to a million is up from 31 to 33 active listings and that is really high. Another record breaker is one to 1.5 million this week with 60 active listings up from 57. We have never reached 60 in this pocket. Buyers in this price point have a ton of options and it’s very difficult to sell your house in that price point. Finally, 1.5 million plus is also up from 29 to 31 active listings. There aren’t a lot of properties transacting in this pocket. Prices will start to soften here and it will trickle down into the rest of the price points. 

Acton is up from 24 to 27 this week, which is still lower than where we were in the summer when it was in the 30s, but it’s climbing. Glen Williams remained the same at eight. Limehouse is up from seven to eight active listings as well and another record here is the rural market. The rural market is up from 48 to 51 active listings, and I have never seen it over 50. Even weeks in the 40s is really unusual for the rural market, so 51 is nuts! Also, with inventory sitting where it's at in Georgetown right now, it’s almost impossible to be selling a rural property right now. Prices will have to come down and I think in the coming months we will see another mass exodus from the market. If you are a buyer, you really need to be thinking about getting your ducks in a row so you can pull the trigger on buying something in the next six weeks. There are going to be some very good deals to have. We know we're going into a market where our interest rates are dropping and that means we will likely see prices climb next year. I don’t think prices are going to tank like 20%, but I do think 5-10% is reasonable with our current inventory levels. So, this is my call out to buyers we're going to get to this time next year and you're going to regret not buying some of these products that are on the market. Picking up a Delrex area detached home for $850,000  is an amazing option because we know when interest rates go down, those are million to million-one products easily. So just start thinking about that. Also, if you are a seller right now, you need to be taking any offer you get really seriously. There aren’t a ton of buyers on the market and there were only 13 sales this week compared to 31 new listings. That is a huge gap so if a buyer is interested in your property, you need to work with them and see what you can get out of it.

It’s a very interesting market and it’s exactly what I thought was going to happen. The past two fall markets have been horrible and I think that’ll be the case again this year. I’m hoping we follow last years trend of the November/December max exodus off of the market to reset the new year, but for now there are some deals to be had and a boatload of options! 

So, I will be back next Tuesday, have a great week!