Average home price nearly $400K

Average price in Peterborough rose to $398,734 in March, up 32.5% from a year ago

The average price for home sales in Peterborough city and county soared to nearly $400,000 in March – by far the highest monthly average price in Peterborough history.

The average price for all homes sold through the MLS system in March was $398,734, up 32.5% from March 2016, the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Association of Realtors reported.

The record-high Peterborough price remains a relative bargain compared to Toronto area prices, but Peterborough prices have been rising nearly in tandem with Toronto price rate hikes this year.

The average selling price for all properties in the Greater Toronto Area was $916,567 last month -- a 33.2-per-cent jump from $688,011 in March 2016.

Similar jumps are also being experienced this year in other areas surrounding the GTA, including Barrie, Kitchener, Brantford and St. Catharines-Niagara.

Peterborough had 263 residential sales in March, up 11.9 per cent from a year ago, the association reported, while 580 units were sold over the first three months of the year, a 7.8% rise from the same period in 2016.

Sales of all types of properties in Peterborough city and county numbered 318 units in March 2017, up 25.2% year-over-year.

“Home sales strengthened further in March, with activity managing to hit the highest level for the month since 2004 in the face of the most acute supply shortage the region has ever seen,” stated Dianne Tully, president of the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Association of Realtors.

“With the number of months of inventory now approaching just one month, prices are rising at an increasing rate.”

New residential listings on the association’s MLS system numbered 359 units in March 2017, a decline of 24.4% from March 2016 and the lowest March since 2001, according to the association.

The overall supply is a record low. There were just 291 active residential listings on the association’s MLS system at the end of March, down 60.5% from March 2016.

That means that as of the end of March, the inventory of listings would only last about 1.1 months at the current rate of sales.

The residential inventory is down from 3.1 months at the end of March 2016.

The price hikes and sales levels far surpassed what the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation had forecast for 2017 in Peterborough. In its last housing outlook issued last fall, the CMHC predicted average 2017 MLS resale home prices in Peterborough would be in the $321,000 to $330,000 range.

The year-to-date average price in Peterborough was $366,390 in March, up 25.2% from the first three months of 2016. Four years ago the average home price in Peterborough was just $243,678.

Few new homes are being built in Peterborough despite the housing supply squeeze. CMHC reported Peterborough had just 15 new home starts in the first quarter of the year, down 40 per cent from a year ago.