Happy Spring! Hope you are enjoying the nicer weather. Below you will find a market update report which will provide you with information on the local real estate market and recent sales activity in specific Guelph neighbourhoods. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or if you are ready to move forward with the next step!

Guelph Market Update for February 2019

Market Update

Sales:

The numbers are in for February and this is what’s going on in the Guelph real estate market. We had 137 sales in February, which is down 4% from the 143 that we had last year.

Inventory:

We have 307 active listings, which is up 5% from last year. We had 202 new listing hit the market which is about 15% less this February opposed to last year. Less new people put their homes up for sale. I think a lot of that had to do with the horrible weather we had this February. I think it slowed a lot of people who were planning on getting their homes on.

Average Sale Price:

We had an overall average sale price of $513,686. That’s basically flat from the $511,848 that we had in February of 2018. Now if we look at each different house category though it tells a completely different story:

Detached houses: Up about 6% from last February.

Attached houses: Up 4% from last February.

Condo style apartments: Up 7% from last February.

When you look in each individual housing category we are seeing a good amount of year over year appreciation, which is nice. Last year in 2018, it was basically a flat year with very little growth It’s good to start seeing the average sale prices start to inch up again.

List-to-sale-price ratio:

On average, houses are selling for 99% of list price. Obviously, that percentage will fluctuate depending on what price point you’re in. Of the houses right now that are selling, we’re seeing about 24% of them go to multiple offers. Now the bulk of those properties that are going to multiple offers, are in that $400,000-$500,000 categories. About 90% of the houses that are selling multiple offers are under $600,000. You can see this is a big difference depending on what price point you’re in.

Supply & Demand:

We’ve got about 2.24 months of inventory meaning overall we are in a seller’s market.

Months of inventory under $600,000: 2 months. That’s a strong seller’s market. (Anything under 4 is considered a seller’s market.)

Month of inventory between that $600,000-$1,000,000: 3 months. These are what I would call your executive-priced homes, they are actually in a lot more active of a market this year than what we had in the fall.

$1,000,000 +: 33 months. Definitely, a buyer’s market when you get into that higher price point. Although in Guelph it’s normal once you go over that million price point that it is a slower paced market.

Summary:

There has been a lot of doom and gloom about the market for 2019 in the media, but when you look at the statistics it is actually doing pretty well. The average number of sales are slightly down this month although they were slightly up in January. It will be interesting to see what March translates to. One of the positive things is the average sale price for all the housing categories appears to be creeping up. When we look at the March numbers so far, they are looking up as well. Meaning we’ll start getting a bit more appreciation. I don’t think we’re going to see a crazy amount of appreciation this year, but we’ll probably go back to what our traditional amounts were around 4-6%.

For purchasers right now, if you’re buying a house in one of the lower price points, under that $500,000, it still is a very active market, especially for the detached market. We are still seeing lots of those homes go to competition and sell over asking price. Once you start buying in the higher price points, the market is a little bit more level and once you go over that million price point it is a buyer’s market. You can see a little bit more negotiations & higher days on market.

From a seller’s perspective, if you’re selling a lower-priced home, you’re going to use a different strategy than selling one of your more expensive estate homes. As far as timing goes for selling your house, from right now in March, we’re kind of in your peak time for getting your house on the market. I always recommend you list early spring, opposed to waiting till May. In May, we tend to see inventory almost double. Meaning there’s a lot more competition out there, and then there’s a lot more selection for buyers.

If you have any questions about the Guelph real estate market, please comment below or contact us, and I’ll be happy to answer them for you.