Weekly Wrap Up...Trending in the Wrong Direction for Buyers
July 3rd - 9th
Happy Friday! Welcome back to another episode of Selling the Rock - your local real estate podcast! David Kurt is on the mic to share his thoughts on the week!
From a National economic standpoint, the debt numbers came in this week and it wasn’t great. The pandemic has caused a $343 Billion deficit, we have a third of the workforce staying at home, and our country’s had the first credit downgrading in 25 years. So, all-in-all not a great week for Trudeau; as a firework-less Canada Day is right in our rearview mirror.
On a local level, we were wondering if last week's dips in numbers were going to be the start of a trend; or if it was a Canada Day holiday blip on the radar. It turns out sales were as hot as the Idylwylde 2020 Ryder cup team this year (congrats on the win by-the-way). We hit almost 100 deals this week (sales + Conditional deals); all while seeing the lowest number of new listings in over 2 months. See the link for the sales in the last 7 days.
We hit the Wayne Gretzky this week of possible deals (99 total [sales + conditional deals]). After last week's dip we hit the highest number of deals in 2020. In addition to that we have the biggest differential of deals to new listings, but its trending in the wrong direction for buyers and making things better for Sellers in Sudbury.
New listings this week are lower than last week's holiday tainted numbers. This must mean that we have clearly shifted out of the spring market and continue to find our selves in a summer market where listings will be scarce for buyers, and it's not changing in the near future.
I was chatting with a friend about the market this week and he asked me how many sales we saw all of last year (approx 2800); which works out to 50ish a week. We are in a market that is a 100% increase in sales, which explains the chaos we are currently experiencing.
You'd think that the record-breaking temperatures, complete lack of product or pure frustration buyers are feeling with bidding wars would show signs of the market slowing down and easing back to a more balanced marketplace. That's just not happening. The only thing that can stop the market full paced charge may be prices reaching a point that buyers are turned away; and even though we’ve seen some crazy increases in average sale price (we are already up 10% in the average sale price for 2020 over a busy 2019 market), I truly feel that this increase is catching us up to the rest of the gains the province has seen as a whole in the housing sector over the last decade.
From 2015-2017 (actually from 2012-2017) there was very small incremental growth in the average price of a home in Sudbury. 2019 hit and the market started to get really crazy, our average price was up 20K+ year over year and we almost hit a 300k average home price in Sudbury. In the first 6 months of 2020, we are already up almost 30k and seeing an average price of just under 330k for the average sale price in Sudbury. The big bold prediction that I am starting to make is that by the end of 2021 (18 months from now) we may see a $400k average sale price in Sudbury. This could be a huge overshot and very optimistic, but I do see the numbers trending towards it, and I think it will take numbers in that range before buyers start second-guessing jumping into the market.
We're seeing Sudbury have demand from out-of-town buyers like no time that I can remember. I do believe it's tied with people being forced to stay in their concrete box in Southern Ontario for multiple months during COVID, or being confined to a yard the size of a postage stamp; that people are feeling more confident in stepping outside of the city and working virtually and placing more emphasis on their work-life balance. I hope you are continuing to enjoy this beautiful weather; and if you are out and about shopping at some of our local establishments, don’t forget your mask!