Weekly Wrap Up...Listings drop like the mercury on the thermometer 🥶

Hey Sudbury! David Kurt and Kelly Wilcock here, bringing you this week's wrap up episode of Selling the Rock - Your local real estate podcast! 

Brrrr, it’s cold out there! The fall market didn’t last long in Sudbury, and with the deep freeze in full effect it’s not just the temperature that dropped this week, the listings and sales followed suit. From an economic standpoint, it was an interesting week for the Bank Of Canada. They kept the rates unchanged (which was fully expected); but, they made it clear that rates will not be going up until at least 2023. They are currently spending billions a week on buying up bonds to artificially continue low-interest rates, and the head of the BofC actually revealed, “It means that if you’re a household considering making a major purchase you can be confident that interest rates will be low for a long time.” Needless to say, I am confident that they are trying to continue to promote and strengthen the housing market in Canada.

From a real estate perspective, we saw the listings drop like the mercury on the thermometer. We hit the lowest number of new listings since the first few weeks after COVID!

My 5 takeaways this week are:

• It feels like the episode in Game of Thrones where the Starks have been forecasting, ‘Winter is Coming,’ then the cold takes over, the frost covers the ground and the deep freeze is upon them. The winter market definitely showed up this week with new listings down over 30% from our average, and the lowest weekly number since April! This is the seasonality that we have talked about in past weeks. That's to be expected. But, unfortunately, it is one of the biggest reasons why we could see a natural slow down in the market.
• With new listings hitting their low; sales still mirrored the listings almost identically at 41 this week. With the announcement from the Bank of Canada this week where he came out and said rates would continue to be low for the next 3+ years. The buyers who are shopping will still have the ability to scoop up cheap mortgages for the foreseeable future. The slowdown in sales this week was the lowest they have been since the holiday focused May 24 weekend. It is reasonable to assume that the numbers we are seeing this week will continue to be the new normal on a weekly basis as we transition into the shorter days and colder nights.
• Although the multiple offers were up on a percentage base from last week (close to 50% this week from 30% last week); I feel like there is a shift continuing to happen in the market around multiple offers. There were two teams that were responsible for 15% of the massive bidding wars this week; two teams that continue to price places well below what seems like fair market price to generate bidding wars. This has been one strategy that I just don’t see eye-to-eye with personally. It worked out on a few listings this week with one in Minnow Lake that ended up with 60K+ over list-price. Ultimately, it was about 10k above what we would have listed the house for, but some agents love the price-low strategy.
• The winter is one of the best times to find a deal on a home. This is typical in past years and my guess is this will continue to hold true this year as well. For this to happen we have to be in the full swing of the market and find sellers that are getting desperate. Just because the fall market is ending, don’t expect to start instantly finding amazing deals on the market. Deals work off of motivation, and every seller is unique, but we know that motivation hits a high after a few months into the winter market.
• I see so much going on behind the scenes of the real estate marketplace that is done with the intent of padding agents stats. On 3 separate occasions this week I saw a listing that was reduced in price and then changed to pending instantly which is done when agents want to promote their list-to-sales price ratio (not hard to sell a place at full price when you reduce it to the offer price). The other stat agents love to use is the list below market price strategy to pad their stats with, “Sold ‘x%’ over list price.” I don’t know if the public actually puts a lot of confidence in a listing's stats but individual Realtors® sure love to market themselves with them. The other part of Realtors advertising their stats is it is against our code of ethics! Well unless they have signed permission from the buyer and the seller (has to be done on a separate form and not part of the offer as well). How many buyers want to sign off giving permission to the seller's agent that they bought a house at 110% of list price? Not many. We will occasionally advertise stats or a success story that we are proud of on our team but only when they are done with full permission. I’ve been very involved with the volunteer side of real estate in the past and always try to play by the rules and its blatant disregard of agents who are there just trying to shine the light on themselves that gets me frustrated.

It seems like every year Halloween is the unofficial start to winter. Last year this was especially true as I recall being caught in the middle of a blizzard with the kids when we were trick-or-treating. This year it looks like the deep freeze has come a few days earlier; but with a Bank of Canada who is making extra efforts to support the housing market and rates that continue to be at historical lows, I think the buyers will continue to shop through the winter months. They may even come out of hibernation from a summer/spring marketplace that had them afraid to be shopping in the stress of multiple offers and bidding wars.

Wishing you the spookiest of Happy Halloweens and we’ll check in with you next week!