Hey everybody, Cliff Barron from RE/MAX here, with my update for Milton, Georgetown and Glen Williams for January 3rd to the 16th, 2021.  I'm doing the update every couple of weeks now, because I thought that every week was a little bit too much - you can't really get a proper cross section of stats.  They don't change a lot in a week, so I figured every two weeks would be better to do it. 

Just before I get there, I always offer a little tip or insight.  This time, I'd just like to talk about the state of the market. I see Facebook posts all the time asking, "What do you guys think?" and "What's gonna happen?" And of course, every realtor in Southern Ontario chimes in with their opinion and then says, "Hey, call me, I can help you!"  The reality is - the days on the market - nobody is really discussing that, and that's what you have to look at.  

I remember two years ago, it was a way more balanced market. You'd show a property, and then it would sell maybe within a week, two weeks, three weeks, and it would sell for 98, 99, maybe 100% of the asking price.  So, what I did was I purposely compared the past two weeks to the market two years ago - January 2019, to kind of give you a ballpark idea of what happened. But I'll get to those in a minute. 

When a home lists and sells in three or four days, and holds off offers, when the market slows, or when it starts to pick up, the days on the market slowly decrease, decrease, decrease, decrease, and then eventually it gets to the point where the markets get so busy, that offers are held off.  And that started probably at around this time last year. And it just keeps ramping up, ramping up, ramping up. Eventually it will stop, because buyers are getting priced out of the market.  For one thing, they're getting tired of competing.  They're saying, "I'll just stay home," basically. And then the big factor (well a couple of factors), is financing.  The banks are going to say, "No, no, I'm not financing that, it's just too much. We don't think it's worth it, you overpaid for it." Also, the prices are going to go so high that people just can't afford it - as simple as that. When that happens, supplies will start to increase, because demand decreases, and it becomes more of a balanced market. 

So, as I was saying, I'm going to get to the sales for Milton first, and then I can compare them to 2019. Let's see, we had 9 sales of townhouses in Milton over the past 2 weeks. $830k on average, 4 days on the market. (I'll get to that in a sec). 2 semis, $890k on average, 42 days on the market (but that's skewed because one of them was on the market forever, since they started ridiculously high, and they finally sold). And then 32 detached homes, $1.224 on average, 7 days on the market.  And the sales were basically the same as last year.  Last year, we did 39 sales, this year 44. But if you look back to 2019, the sales were roughly the same, around 42. Townhouses were $638k on average, 12 days on the market to sell.  So, you can see, the supply was higher, the prices were much lower, and the time to sell was a healthy 12 days on the market. Towns have gone up by about $150,000 in the past 2 years.  Semis, back then, 27 days on the market, and a detached, 34 days on the market. And they've gone up by $350,000 since then, in Milton - the average detached - that's insane. 

And then we look at Georgetown and Glenn Williams.  It's little slower - things have calmed just a little bit. Slower than last year and slower than the year before. But I think that's because prices have gone up so high and it's what I just mentioned -when prices go too high, then people start to say, "No, no, no, no. I'm sittin' in the sidelines - back off for a year or two and see what happens." I actually had one client the other day. After showing them properties for seven months, we put in offers on properties, maybe eight or so, lost out, lost out. And you know, seven months ago when the offers went in, there was three or four offers.  Towards the end, about two weeks ago, there was 30 offers on some properties, so they said, "We're tappin' out. We're gonna come back in a couple of years and see what happens." 

So let's see, there was 1 town that sold in Georgetown, 3 days on the market and 6 detached, 5 days on the market. Average $1.276 for the detached. That's a little skewed, because there was a big one up near Erin that sold - I think $2.5 million or so, which brought all the figures up. But then we look at 2019 sales:  townhouses on average sold for $655k and 15 days on the market. Now they're selling, if they didn't hold off offers they would sell on the same day - like that. But they hold off the offers, that's why they're 3 days on the market. And detached, two years ago average was $758k, 38 days on the market - the average, which is what it used to be, it was like that for years. And it'll come back to that, too.  It's gone up - let's see, the average was $758k two years ago, for a detached in Georgetown. Now the average is over a million.  They've gone up by about $100k and $250k, so it's crazy. 

So, here's my prediction:  my prediction is that things will slow - but not yet.  When they do, it will balance out and smooth out.  I don't think it's going to be a crash, but I think it will slowly start to trickle in that buyers are backing out and takin' time out, and when that happens, it'll affect the market. 

Anyways, any questions, let me know. Send me a DM, PM, email, phone call, whatever, I can help you out. And again, we're back in lockdown, so we got the COVID hair again... Stay safe everybody!