Chatham-Kent home sales show solid June amid low supply

Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS® numbered 129 units in June 2019. This was little changed from June 2018, edging up just 0.8%. The June 2019 sales figure stood in between the five and 10-year averages for that month.

On a year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 634 units over the first six months of the year, up 1.1% from the same period in 2018. “Home sales were solid in June, which is better than is sounds given how few homes are out there for sale right and the price levels compared to just one year ago,” said Steve Carroll, President of the Chatham-Kent Association of REALTORS®. “The intense competition among buyers for limited listings this year continues to show up in the behaviour of prices, which are on track for a huge gain in 2019.”

The average price of homes sold in June 2019 was $242,968, jumping 24% from June 2018. The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $246,948, up a similar 24.2% from the first six months of 2018. There were 168 new residential listings in June 2019, an increase of 15.1% on a year-over-year basis but still below the same month in most other years.

Active residential listings numbered just 279 units at the end of June. While this was up 36.1% from June 2018’s extreme low, it was still below the same time in all other years on record. Months of inventory numbered 2.2 at the end of June 2019, up from the 1.6 months recorded at the end of June 2018 but well below the long-run average of 5.9 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.