Home sales slowed in December while home prices increased
Here are major points of 2018 statistics:
- The number of homes sold and purchased in 2018 went down 11.1% if to compare with 2017
- Average sale price of all residential properties sold in 2018 increased 3.4%
- Demand was continuing to outpace supply
- Average days to sell in 2018 was 24 days, compared to 19 days in 2017
We see that 2018 was definitely a seller’s market. Yes, it took longer period of time to sell your home (if these 5 days in average makes a big difference for anyone), but shortage of supply pushes home prices even higher, and possibly out of reach for many first time buyers.
Talking about first time homebuyers, it is not only a limited number of homes on the market (compared to average inventory) that keeps them away from a possible deal. Mortgage regulations, rising cost to borrow and restrictions introduced by the federal government were the major factors.
You can get more stat numbers from the KWAR (Kitchener Waterloo Association of Realtors), which is a reliable pool of information for buyers and sellers of real estate. The full report is here.
If you are thinking to move and decide you’d like some professional expertise, we would love to hear from you. We, realtors, have our fingers on the pulse of the market.