February pace in WIDREB sales was about average

Woodstock-Ingersoll district 'inventory' of listings still very low

Average price of a home in February was $254,248

By Mark Schadenberg

Buyers are frustrated and sellers are happy.

The adage in real estate about listing with the correct price is always true, but with the market in its current state, if your listing price is maybe tweaked slightly below market value, you will receive more than one offer and likely sell for much more than you expected. This could always be a gamble though.

Sharpen your pencil and list at the right price after a market analysis on your home compares to others which have recently sold, but be sure to factor in depreciated elements including flooring, furnaces, your roof, bathrooms, and kitchen. It is sometimes considered good strategy to attach a very attractive list price as an asking price too high in our current market will be noted quickly as a good house in a good location and with the right price should be sold in less than three weeks.

Good news for the seller, but not necessarily good news for buyers.

Market value in its simplest of terms is 'What someone is willing to pay for a property.'

WIDREB Last Month

February sales in the Woodstock-Ingersoll district area (WIDREB) were not spectacular, but when you consider available inventory, sales were brisk.

Sales last month were 84, which was down 3.4% from February of 2015.

I’ve never truly liked the method in which the ‘inventory’ number is calculated, but what the stat determines is exactly what I’ve stated about the need for good marketable listings. In February of 2016 it was calculated there was a 3.9 months of available inventory versus 4.7 in February of 2015. This abacus analysis basically says: how long would it take to sell the current total listings based on the current sales pace. This numerical guess assumes there will be no new listings, so automatically it’s logically flawed but is still a good monitoring bar.

The etched-in-concrete stat from WIDREB is that there 324 active residential listings as Feb 29th hit midnight – a decrease of 20.8% from the end of the second month of 2015.

By the way, the average sales price continues to climb upward, which means even if you’re not selling, your house is worth more than it was 29 days ago and 365 days ago. The average price is $254,248 for an increase of 3.5% when compared to February of 2015.

Among the links below is an update on national real estate sales totals. It truly is comparing apples to oranges to grapes to raspberries when you look at our local market and attempt to compare it to Toronto or Vancouver, and then some recent woes of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

In this geographical area of Ontario, however, Brantford, K-W and London are also in the midst of brisk sales.

The London – St Thomas board is one I follow closely as it’s further from the GTA (not closer) and our Royal LePage Triland head office is in London. The LSTAR area saw an increase of 21.9% over a slow February of 2015. With 652 sales in February and 1,146 new listings (19% decrease in new listings) you can see that the London area market is almost 10 times the size of Woodstock-Ingersoll (WIDREB).  

"According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's forecast, sales are expected to grow more than new listings in 2016," says LSTAR president Stacey Evoy of Royal LePage Triland. "If you're thinking of putting your home on the market, this would be a great time to do that."

Evoy did point out that there were 39 sales reported on the leap day, which would somewhat contribute to the massive increase.
Also included below is a link to a London Free Press related story talking about home construction.

HUGE INCREASE

In Kitchener-Waterloo, which does include New Hamburg, Baden, Ayr and other nearby communities, the results for February were up more than 40% from February of 2015 with 452 transactions. That total is also 18.6% higher than the 5-year average. Single detached homes in K-W now sell for $419,000 on average, which is a 1-year gain of 7.7%.

I’m always impressed with how quickly WIDREB posts its new monthly numbers. As you will see from some of the links below, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) totals below often still include end-of-January results.

  

LINKS:

www.widreb.ca

www.realtor.ca
http://www.lfpress.com/2016/03/06/despite-building-dip-economy-looks-good
http://www.crea.ca/news/canadian-home-sales-rebound-in-january/

http://creastats.crea.ca/brnt/

http://creastats.crea.ca/lond/

http://creastats.crea.ca/camb/

http://creastats.crea.ca/huro/

Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative

Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)

Royal LePage Triland Realty Brokerage

Twitter: markroyallepage