Wednesday, January 7, 2015

December 2014

Still a shortage of listings, case in point, sales volumes for December were off by 22%.  On the year they were off 5%.  So December was considerably light.

19 of the 101 December '14 sales sold above one million dollars.  That was almost double for the same period in 2013 and resulted in the average price of a detached 2-storey to climb to over $1.1 million.  During the year that averaged hovered above & below that threshold with most months reporting above the million dollar mark for detached 2-storey homes.

The rental market fared better in December '14 compared to December '13 with the number of sales increasing by 25%, but they were off on an annualized basis by 7.5%.

Seems that a number of families are deciding to stay put longer in their current homes & apartments rather than sell & buy something else.  And many are finding that renovating is the more practical choice to make.

It also took a week longer to sell homes & condominiums during the month with the average sale taking about 40 days to complete the sale.

The lack of new inventory will help sale prices to maintain their lofty levels.  However, the financial markets have taken a recent plunge with the drastic drop in oil prices and it will be interesting to see what that might do to the housing market as the year unfolds.  Financing does remain very attractive!