KITCHENER -- Fewer homes on the market pushed sale prices even higher in Waterloo Region last month.
According to a report from the Kitchener-Waterloo Association of Realtors, just 153 detached homes were sold in Kitchener-Waterloo and area through the first month of 2020, down 19 per cent compared to January of last year.
That helped push the average price of a detached home sold through January to a whopping $670,944, up 18.8 per cent compared to the same month in 2019.
"Consumers can’t buy what’s not there. The available number of homes for sale, or lack thereof, continued to evade home buyers in January," KWAR President Colleen Koehler is quoted in a news release.
"There is no doubt we would be reporting more sales if we had the inventory to match the demand."
Other residential home sales actually increased by a fair amount: the 39 condominium units sold were 18.2 per cent more than 2018, while freehold townhome sales increased by 7.9 per cent.
Semi-detached home sales remained steady.
Average home prices for January 2020 are broken down as follows (note that all figures are compared to January 2019):
- Detached: $670,944 (+ 18.8%)
- Semi-detached: $484,190 (+ 18.7%)
- Freehold townhome: $439,765 (+ 20.3%)
- Apartment-style condominium: $382,636 (+ 26.1%)
- Average for all residential properties: $561,029 (+ 15.7%)
A chart showing the average sale prices by property type over the last 12 years. (Source: KWAR)
These prices are partly due to the number of listings through January.
The 464 residential properties listed in January was a 63.7 per cent drop compared to the 10-year average of 1,080 listings the month usually sees.
Sales, meanwhile, only dropped 3.6 per cent compared to the rate over the last 10 years.
Koehler calls the area "an exceptionally attractive place to buy a home."
