Strong December home sales exceeds expectations, due to slower 2013

Ron Smith, president of the Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors.

Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS system of the Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors came in well above levels from a year earlier in December 2013; however, sales for the year as a whole posted a decline compared to 2012. Home sales numbered 69 units in December 2013, up 64 per cent on a year-over-year basis. The annual sales total for 2013 was 1,112 units, a decrease of five per cent from 2012.

“December is always a quiet month in real estate, but this December’s sales figure compared to other months of December in the past was surprisingly strong, particularly given some of the softening in activity we saw in the fall,” said Ron Smith, President of the Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors. “In the end, a strong December and solid spring and summer was not enough to fully offset the slow start to the year and quiet fall, and the annual sales figure came in around 1,100 units vs. around 1,200 like we’ve seen in recent years. On the price side, the Chatham-Kent region remains one of the most affordable in Ontario. That said, the average sale price continued to rise in 2013, coming in just shy of the $150,000 mark.” The average price of homes sold in December 2013 was $145,863, up nine per cent from December 2012. The less volatile annual average price in 2013 was $148,516, an increase of three per cent from 2012. New listings numbered 83 units in December, down 22 per cent from the same month last year.

There were 464 active residential listings on the association’s MLS system at the end of December 2013. This was a 14 per cent decrease from the same time last year. Supply has been generally trending down over the past few years. There were 6.7 months of inventory at the end of December 2013, down significantly from 12.8 months a year earlier and below the long-run average for this time of the 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.