Over the past few months, we have become used to the fact that the housing inventory in Kitchener and Waterloo continued to drop. Prices have also remained relatively flat overall.
That finally started to shift in September, and buyers got their hopes up.
“September is generally a busy month for new listings, and it's clear that many buyers were waiting on the sidelines in the Summer, expecting a rush of new listings to tip the scales in their favour,” says Greig Turvey, Sales Representative, GoWylde Team/ReMax. “But this rush never came.”
The Kitchener/Waterloo area only saw 618 new listings in September, which is about 25 per cent less than you would typically expect for this time of year. This mismatch of supply and demand also brought about a significant increase in the average sales price for all property types across the board—between 5 per cent and 12 per cent, compared to the month of August.
That average sale price figure was $773,187 across all categories, $949,167 for detached homes, $645,273 for attached houses and $497,949 for condos and apartments. An incredible 85 per cent of listings sold for over asking.
“It's looking and feeling like we're going back into the same crazy market we had in January and February, where prices continued to shoot up, and with so many buyers competing for such scarce inventory that it can be difficult to even book a time slot to show a property,” says the REALTOR®.
With inventory likely to fall each month as we approach the holiday season, there's really no end in sight for this extreme sellers’ market.
What approach is recommended then, under such circumstances? If you're a buyer without a home to sell, it’s probably best to act quickly. Otherwise you risk getting get left behind, as so many other hesitant buyers have over the past year and a half.
Stay up to date with the latest market trends in Kitchener and Waterloo with real estate agents Brad Wylde and Greig Turvey. Visit the GoWylde Team or call 519-826-7109 for more information.
