Both real estate boards for Oxford County reported a record July for home sales in the region as the monthly average price of homes neared $500,000.
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Both real estate boards for Oxford County reported a record July for home sales while the monthly average sale price for homes neared $500,000.
The Woodstock and Ingersoll District Real Estate Board announced 192 units sold last month for an increase of 30.6 per cent from the same period last year. The Tillsonburg District Real Estate Board reported 93 units sold for a 17.7 per cent improvement from the same month last year.
The average sale price of homes sold in July reached a record $491,618 in Woodstock and a record $471,324 in Tillsonburg.
“Home sales continued to rebound in July, hitting a new record for that month,” Lesley Michie, the president of the Woodstock and Ingersoll board, said. “With many sellers still holding off listing this year, and new and existing listings being quickly scooped up, the overall inventory of homes for sale is almost below 100 listings for the first time ever.”
With the July numbers,the Woodstock-area board reported a total of 824 home sales through the first seven months of 2020. The Tillsonburg-area board reached 416 units for the same period.
The average sales price for homes in Woodstock and area was $468,712 through the first seven months of 2020 while the Tillsonburg average was $446,278 for the same span.
“Home sales have only surpassed 100 in a single month once in history, so the 93 transactions recorded in July 2020 was a very strong showing – easily the best July ever,” Dane Willson, president of the Tillsonburg District Real Estate Board, said.
The two real estate regions continued to rebound in July from the slowdown in sales in March and April due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, a downtrend in new construction because of the pandemic has drastically reduced the number of new homes available, leading to more competition and increased prices, board officials said.
In Woodstock, the overall supply is at a record low with only 113 active listings remaining at the end of July. a sharp 58.6 per cent drop from July 2019. There were 160 new listings last month representing 0.6 months of inventory – a little more than two weeks of supply.
The Tillsonburg-area is also seeing a similar reduction in available homes, with only 109 active listings recorded at the end of July.
The months of inventory for Tillsonburg sits at 1.2 – the lowest ever – after only 81 homes were listed in July.
The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell existing inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
“At the same time, there are fewer properties for sale on the market right now than at any other point on record, so there is a lot of competition for those listings that are selling,” Willson said. “Not surprisingly, this is showing up on the price side.”
The July home sales in Tillsonburg totalled a combined $43.8 million – an increase of 53.5 per cent from July, 2019 – and represented the highest number for any month in the board’s history.
The Canadian Real Estate Association reported July boasted the most homes sold in Canadian history during a one-month period.
The association reported 62,355 sales across the country, up 26 per cent from June.
“What a difference three months makes, from some of the lowest housing numbers ever back in April to the multiple monthly records logged in July,” Shaun Cathcart, the Canadian association’s senior economist, said in a release. “A big part of what we’re seeing right now is the snap back in activity that would have otherwise happened earlier this year.”
– With files from Bloomberg News
