The Renfrew County Real Estate Board has just released its August statistics. These contain the following comparative figures:
- Total MLS sales was 150 units being a decrease of 17.5 percent from August 2021. Sales were 19.4 percent below the five year average and 8.9 percent below the ten year average for the same month. On the year to date basis, total sales resulted in a “large decline” of 25 percent from the same period in 2021.
- The average price of homes was $424,534 – down 0.2 percent from August 2021. However, the year to date average price was $475,361 – a gain of 19.8 percent from the first eight months of 2021.
- The number of new listings showed a decrease of 6.1 percent from the previous year. There were 216 new residential listings in August 2022. This was the lowest number of new listings added in the month of August in more than a decade.
- Active listings were 31.6 percent below the five year average and 57.8 percent below the ten year average for the month of August.
- Months of inventory numbered 3.9 at the end of August 2022, up from the 1.5 months recorded at the end of August 2021 and below the long-run average of 4.7 months for this time of year. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
Barry’s Bay Broker and President of the Renfrew County Real Estate Board Patricia Scott provided the following comment to The Current. “The trending of lower prices for the most part has begun. We are regularly seeing price reductions and sales reported below asking price. The “Covid effect” seems to have finally ended. The continuous rise in mortgage rates along with buyer fatigue of the last two years has brought some rapid reversal to the area market. During Covid you could almost guarantee multiple offers and of course there was only one winner and anyone who expected to win had to come in with an unconditional offer. We are finally back to being able to write, in most cases, offers with conditions. We are starting to see a steady build of inventory.”
Image: Mortgage Solutions
