Kingston and Area Real Estate Association

The number of homes sold through the MLS® System of the Kingston and Area Real Estate Association totaled 174 units in October 2023. This was a decrease of 8.9% from October 2022.

Home sales were 34.9% below the five-year average and 34.8% below the 10-year average for the month of October.

On a year-to-date basis, home sales totaled 2,196 units over the first 10 months of the year. This was a large decline of 18% from the same period in 2022.

“Sales activity continues to perform below average levels as buyers choose to keep themselves sidelined, awaiting a more concrete signal from the Bank of Canada that the latest cycle of tightening has indeed come to an end,” said Stacey MacDonald, President of the Kingston and Area Real Estate Association. “Our market is well-supplied at the moment, to the point where the balance is tilted slightly more in favour of buyers. Along with MLS® benchmark prices being down from last year, conditions are welcoming for any buyers when they decide to return.”

The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) tracks price trends far more accurately than is possible using average or median price measures. The overall MLS® HPI composite benchmark price was $543,000 in October 2023, a decrease of 4.6% compared to October 2022.

The benchmark price for single-family homes was $552,900, a moderate decrease of 4.7% on a year-over-year basis in October. By comparison, the benchmark price for townhouse/row units was $522,900, falling by 3.6% compared to a year earlier, while the benchmark apartment price was $447,300, down only 0.5% from year-ago levels.

The average price of homes sold in October 2023 was $585,850, decreasing by 5.3% from October 2022.

The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $614,258, a decline of 7.2% from the first 10 months of 2022.

The dollar value of all home sales in October 2023 was $101.9 million, down sharply by 13.7% from the same month in 2022.

The number of new listings saw an increase of 20.3% from October 2022. There were 498 new residential listings in October 2023. This was the largest number of new listings added in the month of October in more than five years.

New listings were 19.7% above the five-year average and 12.7% above the 10-year average for the month of October.

Active residential listings numbered 903 units on the market at the end of October, a jump of 44.7% from the end of October 2022. Active listings haven’t been this high in the month of October in more than five years.

Active listings were 49.9% above the five-year average and 8.4% below the 10-year average for the month of October.

Months of inventory numbered 5.2 at the end of October 2023, up from the 3.3 months recorded at the end of October 2022 and above the long-run average of 3.9 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.