The number of residential real estate sales recorded by the Barrie & District Association of Realtors, Inc for the month of February 2018 was 263 units which is down 43.2% from the record set in February 2017.
Year to date sales were 482 units in the first 2 months of the year creating a decrease of 33.2% from the same period of time in 2017.
Within the City of Barrie sales activity was down 45.9%, year over year with the city only seeing 139 units sold in February 2018. Surrounding areas had a 39.8% decrease in sales activity totaling 127 units.
It seems that factors like the new mortgage stress test coming into affect January 1 moved up sales to the end of 2017 and some closings in early 2018.
The year to date average selling price in the City of Barrie so far is $485,483 causing a decrease of 2.1% compared to last year the same time. Surrounding areas so far this year was $542,821, increasing prices by 2.2% from 2017.
There was a rise of 125.5% of active listings on the market over the lows of last February with 3.6 months of inventory at the end of February 2018.
See http://creastats.crea.ca/barr/ for further details.
The many factors contributing to the reduction in price and sales numbers including the new government stress test, increased mortgage rates, trade uncertainty and economic factors. Although none expected, it will be important to watch the Bank of Canada for its decisions on mortgage rate hikes.
