Chatham-Kent home sales set new November record

Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS® numbered 133 units in November 2017, rising 9.9% on a year-over-year basis from last November. This was new record for this month. On year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 1,377 units over the first 11 months of the year, down just 0.6% (nine sales) from the record for the period in 2016. “November set yet another monthly record for home sales, the fourth this year along with February, May and October,” said Kristi Willder, President of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS®. “The records of the past two months have moved activity for the year as a whole to within less than 10 sales of last year’s record. Regardless of how the December numbers shake our, the bigger picture is that the last two years have been the strongest the local housing market has ever seen. At the same time, with inventories trending at all-time lows, the average price will be up by about 15% this year.”

The average price of homes sold in November 2017 was $190,212, up 17.9% from November 2016. The year-to-date average price was $185,642, rising 14.5% from the first 11 months of last year. New listings numbered 117 units in November, down 5.6% from the same month in 2016. This was the lowest level for the month in nearly three decades. There were just 260 active residential listings on the Association’s MLS® System at the end of November 2017. This was the lowest level for this time of year in more than 25 years, down 27.4% from November 2016.

There were just two months of inventory at the end of November 2017, down from three months reported a year earlier and well 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.