Chatham-Kent home sales remain historically elevated in June

Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS® numbered 148 units in June 2017, up 1.4% on a year-over-year basis. This stood just six sales below the June record set a decade earlier. On year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 739 units over the first half of the year, rising 4.2% from the same period in 2016. This was a record for the period. “Home sales in the Chatham-Kent region have slowed down a little bit, going from record levels to near-record levels, but the market is still very strong,” said Kristi Willder, President of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS®. “Unlike some other markets to the East of us, our market has not seen any increase in new listings in recent months. As a result, overall inventories are testing fresh all-time lows, and that is keeping upward pressure on prices.” The average price of homes sold in June 2017 was $206,978, up 27.5% from June 2016. The year-to-date average price was $192,419, rising 18.9% from the first half of last year. New listings numbered 180 units in June, down 26.8% from the same month in 2016. This was the lowest June level in nearly two decades. There were just 311 active residential listings on the Association’s MLS® System at the end of June 2017. This was a record-low for this time of year, down 43.1% from June 2016. There were just 2.1 months of inventory at the end of June 2017, down from 3.7 months reported a year earlier and less than half 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.