Residential home sales recorded through the MLS® system for the Kawartha Lakes Real Estate Association Inc. totaled 140 units in October 2018. This was unchanged from October 2017 and was back in line with both the five and 10-year averages for the month following a string of below-average monthly results earlier this year.
On a year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 1,140 units over the first 10 months of the year. This was a decrease of 18.3% from the same period in 2017 and marked the lowest level for the period since the late 1990s owing mostly to weakness in the first half of 2018.
There were 185 new residential listings in October 2018. This was up 6.3% (11 listings) on a year-over-year basis and put new listings for the month of October at the highest level in three years.
Overall supply is still historically subdued but is up from the extreme lows seen in 2016 and 2017. Active residential listings numbered 413 units at the end of October. This was an increase of 18.7% from the end of October 2017. That said, the long-term average for the end of October is over 700 listings.
Months of inventory numbered 2.9 at the end of October 2018, up a bit from the 2.5 months recorded at the end of October 2017 but still less that half the long-run average of 6.8 months for this time of year. 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.
Source: Canadian Real Estate Association ®