Chatham-Kent home sales mark best March in a decade

Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS® numbered 114 units in March 2016, up 42.5 per cent on a year-over-year basis. Sales numbered 257 over the first three months of the year, up 17.9 per cent on a year-over-year basis.

“Sales activity this March hit the highest level for the month in a decade, which stretched the year-over-year comparison even more,” said Barb Phillips, President of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS®. “Things don’t seem to be letting up in April either.”

The average price of homes sold in March 2016 was $151,279, down 7.6 per cent from March 2015. The less volatile year-to-date average sale price was $152,615, little changed (-0.9 per cent) from the first quarter of 2015. New listings numbered 177 units in March, a decrease of 14.1 per cent from the same month last year. There were 506 active residential listings on the Association’s MLS® System at the end of March 2016. This was down 6.8 per cent from March 2015, and marked the lowest level of supply at the end of the first quarter of the year since the late 1990s. There were 4.4 months of inventory at the end of March 2016, down from 6.8 months a year earlier and well below the long-run average for this time of the 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.