Kitchener-Waterloo home sales continue to fall but prices remain on the rise

Home sales in Kitchener-Waterloo continued to decline in July, continuing an ongoing trend.

Sales were down 10.6 per cent from July 2017 and 16.8 per cent compared to June 2018, according to stats released by the Kitchener-Waterloo Association of Realtors (KWAR).

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“The story for July is largely more of the same that we’ve been seeing for most of 2018,” KWAR president Tony Schmidt said in a release.

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While the volume of homes sales decreased from 564 to 504 year over year, the price of a home in the cities continue to rise. The average sale price was up 5.5 per cent ($480,145) in July 2018 compared with a year earlier.

“The number of sales has decreased from what we were seeing the past couple of years to more typical levels, but the value of homes not only remains steady but continues to gradually increase,” Schmidt said.

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The price of a detached home was 12.4 per cent higher ($584,337) in July versus the same month in 2017. There was an increase across the board as apartment style condominiums were up on average 4.3 per cent ($292,714) while townhomes and semis rose 2.2 per cent ($359,278) and 9.8 per cent ($387,664) respectively.

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The downward trend in sales and upward trend in prices may be in part due to a lack of available product.

There were only 739 new listings in Kitchener-Waterloo in July, a decrease of 8.9 per cent from the same period a year earlier.