Home sales across Chatham-Kent down in April, but new listings soar

Home sales were down across Chatham-Kent in April, but there are plenty of houses to choose from for buyers.

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The 117 units sold last month is a “substantial decline of 14.6 per cent” from April 2023, according to the latest statistics from the Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors.

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Home sales were down nearly eight per cent from the five-year average and 6.6 per cent below the 10-year average for the month of April, said a CKAR media release.

The 375 homes sold over the first four months of this year is a modest gain of 10 sales from the same period in 2023, added CKAR.

“Sales activity has seen quite the turnaround since hitting a recent bottom last fall but still remains subdued when compared to historical numbers for April,” said CKAR president Carrie Patrick in the release.

“New listings, on the other hand, are rocketing upward as sellers have been eagerly bringing their listings to the market, perhaps in anticipation of a turnaround in demand,” she said.

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“However, that turnaround has not yet materialized as buyers continues to be teased with the timing of the first interest rate cut, now expected in June, and appear to be holding out for now until stronger evidence presents itself that this indeed will come to pass ,” Patrick added.

The average price of a home sold in April was $454,979, up 4.5 per cent from April 2023.

“The most comprehensive year-to-date average price was $421,471, essentially unchanged, down just 0.1 per cent from the first four months of 2023,” CKAR said.

The dollar value of all home sales in April was $53.2 million, a big reduction of 10.7% from the same month in 2023.

But, the number of new listings soared by 35.7 per cent from April 2023 with 270 new residential listings last month.

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“This was the largest number of new listings added in the month of April in more than five years,” CKAR said.

New listings were 34.5 per cent about the five-year average and 28.7 per cent above the 10-year average for the month of April.

There were 450 active residential listings on the market at the end of April, a jump of 37.2 per cent from the end of April 2023.

Active listings haven’t been this high in the month of April in more than five years, CKAR said. Active listings were nearly 86 per cent above the five-year average and 43.5 per cent above the 10 year average for the month of April.

There was 3.8 months of inventory at the end of April up from the 2.4 months recorded at the end of April 2023 and above the long-run average of 2.6 months for this time of year, CKAR said.

The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.

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