Quinte & District Association of REALTORS® Inc.

The number of homes sold through the MLS® System of the Quinte & District Association of REALTORS® Inc. totaled 196 units in February 2023. This was a big decline of 34.4% from February 2022.

Home sales were 14.6% below the five-year average and 6.3% below the 10-year average for the month of February.

On a year-to-date basis, home sales totaled 336 units over the first two months of the year. This was a substantial reduction of 40.7% from the same period in 2022.

“Sales activity has been muted since declining over the first half of last year but has kept within range of longer term historical averages, a trend that continued in February,” said Natasha Huizinga, President of the Quinte & District Association of REALTORS® Inc. “Part of this stability in home sales might be due to the sustained momentum in new listings, which has been supplying the market and buyers with a relatively ample choice of available inventory. On the price side it looks like the MLS® HPI benchmark price has flattened out as declines have been getting smaller and smaller, which could suggest that the market might be turning a corner as early as this spring.”

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 $538,400 in February 2023, a substantial decrease of 18.7% compared to February 2022.

The benchmark price for single-family homes was $540,900, a big reduction of 18.8% on a year-over-year basis in February. By comparison, the benchmark price for townhouse/row units was $485,200, a substantial decline of 12.3% compared to a year earlier.

The average price of homes sold in February 2023 was $605,174, a sharp decrease of 22.3% from February 2022.

The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $602,291, down sharply by 20.9% from the first two months of 2022.

The dollar value of all home sales in February 2023 was $118.6 million, a substantial decline of 49.1% from the same month in 2022.

The number of new listings saw a moderate gain of 5.2% from February 2022. There were 367 new residential listings in February 2023.

New listings were 7.6% above the five-year average and 4.8% above the 10-year average for the month of February.

Active residential listings numbered 686 units on the market at the end of February, more than double the levels from a year earlier, rocketing up 266.8% from the end of February 2022.

Active listings were 27.4% above the five-year average and 14.5% below the 10-year average for the month of February.

Months of inventory numbered 3.5 at the end of February 2023, up from the 0.6 months recorded at the end of February 2022 and below the long-run average of 4.7 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.