A real estate sign.
Home sales in Sault Ste. Marie and area sizzled in July after lagging briefly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and are now on par with sales volume in 2019.
Sault Ste. Marie Real Estate Board reports 164 properties sold last month at an average price of $206,781. That’s 45 per cent more than the 113 properties sold in July 2019. The average selling price climbed about 9 per cent compared to $190,147 a year earlier.
“Most anything right now is selling if it’s priced within reason,” board president Anne Thomas told The Sault Star.
August sales “are remaining strong” with more than 200 units sold.
Total properties sold between January and July 2019 stood at 652. Average selling price was $199,451. The first seven months of 2020 saw 659 properties change hands at an average price of $213,597.
Fewer available properties are driving the boost in selling price, said Thomas.
“Supply and demand is probably the biggest thing,” she said. “There’s still less listings than we would normally have.”
“Little bit rural” properties, including farms and homes in Echo Bay and Goulais, single-family dwellings, especially bungalows, waterfront properties, particularly small camps, and small investment properties are proving especially popular with buyers.
Sales nosedived in April because of novel coronavirus, but “started to pick up” in May.
“By June, things picked up quite well,” said Thomas. Real estate transactions typically slow down in July and August before “picking up again” from September to November but “not this year.
“It’s been good all the way through, but we’re playing catch-up,” said Thomas. “I think it’ll just continue at this pace, probably until the end of the year. We can never really tell, but it does seem like things are still solid. Unless we have a second big wave (of COVID-19) it should continue on. People are starting to get back to work and do all those things that they’ve normally been doing.”
In 2019, 1,803 units were sold.
Now is a good time for properties to go up for sale, while buyers have to “better prepared” for a market where multiple offers are being made for some dwellings.
Buyers should get pre-approved for a mortgage and have cash to cover a downpayment and closing costs.
“Speak with a realtor they feel they can work with to understand the process, walk them through the search and viewing properties, making an offer, all the way to closing day when they get the keys to their new home,” said Thomas.
The board represents 172 real estate agents from Elliot Lake to Wawa. Thomas is a broker with RE/MAX Sault Ste. Marie.
Nationally, 62,355 transactions in July “marked the highest monthly sales figure on record going back more than 40 years,” Canadian Real Estate Board says.
“A big part of what we’re seeing right now is the snap back in activity that would have otherwise happened earlier this year,” said CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart in a release. “Recall that before the lockdown, we were heading into the tightest spring market in almost 20 years. Things may have gone quiet for a few months, but ultimately the market we’re seeing right now is mostly the same one we were heading into back in March.”
There’s a tight supply of homes nationally with 2.8 months of inventory, the lowest amount on record. Inventory represents how long it would take to liquidate current inventories at the current rate of sales activity, CREA says.
On Twitter: @Saultreporter
