Home listings at record low

Home sales in January down 42.3% from a year ago, with average price of $392,405

Residential home sales in Peterborough city and county were down 42.3 per cent compared to a year ago, but prices remain at near record highs and the supply of listings was at its lowest in three decades.

The Peterborough and the Kawartha Association of Realtors reported Friday that there were 79 homes sold in January, down 42.3 per cent from January 2017.

The average sale price was about $392,405.

“Most of that big year-over-year drop happened last summer, so it’s less of a January 2018 story and more of a retelling of how strong the market was in early 2017,” stated Kristi Doyle, president of the association, which represents 455 real estate professionals in the city and county.

“Having said that, like many other markets in Canada, the Peterborough market did see activity rally in November and December before falling back in January. The likely cause of that trend is buyers who moved up deals to beat the new mortgage stress test that came into effect on New Year’s Day.”

New residential listings on the association’s MLS system numbered 161 units in January, down 14.4 per cent from January 2017 -- the lowest level in more than three decades for new supply in the month of January, according to the association.

There were just 237 active residential listings on the association’s MLS system at the end of January, down 8.5 per cent from January 2017 and a record-low for the end of January. Normally there would be about 900 listings at this time of year.

That translates to a residential months of inventory -- the number of months it would take to sell the current listings at the current rate of sales -- of three at the end of January, up slightly from 1.9 months at the end of January 2017 but just a third of the long-term average for this time of year, according to the association.

Sales of all types of properties numbered 92 units in January 2018, down 41 per cent year-over-year.

Meanwhile, the Canada Mortage and Housing Corporation reports there were 25 new single-detached house starts in January in the Peterborough census metropolitan area but no multi-unit home starts, compared to two single-detached and 10 multi-unit starts in January 2017. Nationally, home starts hit a 10-year high in December.