Home Sales Cool in November, While Prices Still Rise as per the Canadian Real Estate Association.
November produced the largest national monthly decline in activity since 2012. The number of home resales stands at its lowest level since September 2015. This may be in part because of the new mortgage measures instituted by the federal government starting in October 2016. They managed to slow many real estate markets down in about two thirds of all local markets including Vancouver and Toronto. This is unexpected because it was predicted by many that the new rules were more likely to affect smaller markets than those but it seems they took a hit too. Vancouver was also affected by earlier changes to purchase rules for foreigners.
Real estate is a local phenomena too therefore, you would need to look at your particular city in order to get the local picture. The Barrie and District Real Estate Board defied the national odds by having an increase in sales by 22 per cent, the best November on record. The City of Barrie alone saw an increase of 26.4% on a year over year basis with a y-o-y increase of 11.8% in its surrounding areas.
On the whole sales for the first 11 months of 2015 are up 16.1%.
Since we are seeing the tightest real estate market in years the average price has increased by 17% over last year with an average price of $436,990 for the association overall. The City of Barrie average price is $411,239 with an increase of 18.9%. Sorrounding areas $466,626.
Overall supply is trending to the lowest near the lowest on record.
These stats are just unbelievable and I wonder if the City of Barrie will maintain its reputation of an affordable community within commuting distance to Toronto. Perhaps its the Torontonians who are causing these increases as they are no longer able to afford Toronto and are buying up the homes in Barrie.
It wil be interesting to see what 2017 holds!
Please see the CREA stats for the Barrie and District Real Estate Board http://creastats.crea.ca/barr/
