Home sales slowed to a snail’s pace in Waterloo Region in October as local realtors report the slowest November sales in more than 10 years.
The Waterloo Region Association of Realtors issued their monthly update on Tuesday, which says that a total of 441 homes changed hands in November, which is down 4.5 per cent year-over-year but 33.1 per cent below the previous five-year average.
“Last month, the number of homes sold followed their typical pattern of cooling to match the weather, but with consumer confidence continuing to drop, we saw sales slump to their lowest level for November in over a decade,” new WRAR president Christal Moura stated.
“With many still waiting to see what happens with interest rates in the months to come, homes are taking a little longer to sell, there’s more inventory on the market, all contributing to sale prices levelling off.”
While sales were slow, that did not stop a heavy number of new house listings from coming onto the market.
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The realtors say that 868 homes were put on the market in Waterloo Region in November, which is 15 per cent more than a year earlier and 16.7 per cent above the previous 10-year-average.
The glut these additions to the market created was apparent at the end of November as realtors say there were 1,305 listings open, which is up 54.8 per cent from November 2022.
This number represented about 2.4 months of inventory, which is the time it would take to sell those houses at the current rate of sale.
WRAR notes that it is now taking 24 days to sell a home compared with 21 days a year earlier. Two years ago, as the market was red-hot, houses were changing hands just 10 days after being listed.
While the housing market may be slowing down, that has not created a huge dip in prices, at least so far.
The realtors say the average sales prices was $757,272 in November, which is 2.6 per cent above a year earlier but 1.6 per cent below October.
That said, we are still well below the high-water mark for the area of $1,007,109, which was established in February 2022, before the interest rate hikes from the federal government really got going.
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