The clearest sign yet that the Kitchener-Waterloo real estate market has returned to some sort of normalcy came Friday, with the release of local January sales data.
There were 270 sales recorded last month in Kitchener, Waterloo, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich.
Not only is that significantly fewer sales than the 329 seen in January 2017 or the 309 from January 2016, it’s slightly lower than the sale numbers from some other Januarys earlier in the decade.
Through 2017, even as the market started to cool off, monthly sales figures were trending higher than any year in the 2010s prior to when the market started to heat up.
While down, the activity level isn’t that much lower than what is considered normal for the KW market. Realtors’ association president Tony Schmidt says the numbers would have represented a “very typical January” for any year before 2016.
“What is less typical is that listing inventory is still at historic low levels, and we continue to see multiple offers on properties putting upward pressure on prices,” Schmidt said in a press release.
At the end of January, there were 588 properties listed for sale through the KWAR system. While that number is a significant increase over the level from January 2017, the 10-year average for January is for 1,507 properties to be on the market. Homes are selling in an average of 32 days.
The low listing levels are continuing to drive up prices, with the average sale price in January hitting $458,750 – a nine per cent increase over January 2017. Detached home prices were up 11 per cent year-over-year, hitting $554,847.
Although rising interest rates and tighter rules around mortgages are likely making homes less affordable for some people in Waterloo Region, analysts say, that drop in demand could be offset by buyers now priced out of markets closer to Toronto moving into the region.
