Real Estate

 Stabilization of interest rates have home prices rising again!

 

  Happy New Year to you all! I hope 2023 will be a wonderful year for you and your family. Here is a summary of various statistics for the Niagara Real Estate Market for the past five years. With all the News Reports, Social Media talk and chatter among friends, I thought it may be good to look at some "hard data", I know it helps me put things in perspective! If you are not in Niagara, the numbers for most areas seem to reflect a similar situation. Feel free to pass this on to anyone you think may be interested! Here is my take on the "Numbers"; - Selling Prices are down 23% from the March 2022 Highs - Selling Prices are down 12% from December 2021 to December 2022. - Selling Prices are now similar to the Spring of 2021. - The Current Average days to sell is 48 days. This is up from 22 Days to sell in December 2021. Overall the market is the slowest it’s been for sales in the past 3-4 years.   Average prices have almost leveled out – there were significan...

 Rebounding interest rates kept prices muted in Toronto and Niagara for November 2022.  Both markets saw a decrease in their Housing Price Index (Toronto down about 0.5%, Niagara down about 1.7%) against October 2022.  The recent 0.5% rate announcement increase by the Bank of Canada should continue to keep activity soft for the month of December. January/February is traditionally a rebound time for market activity in Southern Ontario.  The steep rise in interest rates over the past 9 months may bring an uptick in activity driven by some homeowners becoming "house-poor" when re-negotiating their mortgages from Covid-era low rates, to current much higher rates.  Time will tell if/when this has an effect.

 As per the latest October House Price Indexes, Toronto and Niagara real estate prices seem to be levelling out.  

 The decline in Real Estate prices is slowing to a halt!  The October numbers are promising for home owners - the market is finally stabilizing after an ~8 month slide from March 2022. In Southern Ontario, the Greater Toronto Area is the largest driver of Real Estate.  In October the average sale price held against September, which suggests the price correction is over for the GTA.   In Niagara, there was a 1.3% drop in month-over-month prices, which is a modest decline compared to the ~4% monthly drops we were seeing previously.  As the GTA price stabilization lingers, and interest rates remain higher than many homeowners want to (or can) pay, Niagara may expect to see a strong resumption of buying from GTA sellers.  The average house in GTA sells for $450,000 more than in Niagara - this equates to (at current interest rates) about $2,900/month difference in payments.  This is a massive incentive for those that can and want to move out of GTA!