April Sales remain strong in CK

Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS® numbered 132 units in April 2017, down 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. On year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 419 units over the first four months of the year, rising 4.8% from the same period in 2016. “Home sales came in above average in April 2017, but were not able to match last April’s tally, quite likely because there are so few listings on the market right now,” said Kristi Willder, President of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS®. “Active listings at the end of April 2017 were down more than 40% from a year earlier, which was already at that time a 22-year low.”

The average price of homes sold in April 2017 was $174,396, up 5.4% from April 2016. The year-to-date average price was $180,702, rising 15% from the first four months of last year. New listings numbered 196 units in April, down 16.9% from the same month in 2016. This was the lowest April level since the year 2000.

There were just 300 active residential listings on the Association’s MLS® System at the end of April 2017. This was a record-low for this time of year, down 43.4% from April 2016. There were just 2.3 months of inventory at the end of April 2017, down from 3.7 months reported a year earlier and below the long-run average for this time of year. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.