Chatham-Kent home sales settle down in February

Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS® numbered 67 units in February 2019. This was a decrease of 10.7% (eight sales) from February 2018.

On a year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 139 units over the first two months of the year, an increase of 13.9% from the same period in 2018. “Sales activity cooled in February following an extremely strong end to 2018 and a decent January,” said Steve Carroll, President of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS®. “That said, it’s hard to say how much of these fluctuations in sales are a demand story and to what extent they’re a supply story, because the number of listings out there for buyers to choose from remains historically very low. If the story is more about a demand supply imbalance, then you would expect that to spill over onto the price side of things, and that is exactly what is going on right now.”

The average price of homes sold in February 2019 was a record $250,216, jumping 41.4% from February 2018. The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $233,848, a 32.4% increase from the first two months of 2018.

There were just 102 new residential listings in February 2019, down 4.7% (five listings) on a year-over-year basis. Active residential listings numbered 178 units at the end of February. This was a decrease of 14.4% from the end of February 2018 and marked the lowest level ever recorded at this time of the year.

Months of inventory numbered just 2.7 at the end of February 2019, down a bit from the 2.8 months recorded at the end of February 2018 and well below the long-run average of 7.5 months 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.