Simcoe & District Real Estate Board

The number of homes sold through the MLS® System of the Simcoe & District Real Estate Board totaled 77 units in October 2023. This decreased by 7.2% (six sales) from October 2022.

Home sales were 27.1% below the five-year average and 24.1% below the 10-year average for the month of October.

On a year-to-date basis, home sales totaled 929 units over the first 10 months of the year. This was a modest decline of 2.6% from the same period in 2022.

“Sales activity was down marginally from year-ago levels even as new listings rose to a new record for the month of October,” said David Puddy, President of the Simcoe & District Real Estate Board. “What these diverging trends suggest is that while sellers are eagerly listing their properties in droves hoping to attract buyers, the majority of buyers are still on the sidelines waiting to see if the Bank of Canada has indeed reached a long-term pause on their rate hikes or if any further increases might pop up. Until economic and market uncertainty has settled down it’s unlikely we’ll see these buyers re-emerge in any substantive way.”

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 $561,900 in October 2023, a minor decrease of 2.2% compared to October 2022.

The benchmark price for single-family homes was $562,000, a small reduction of 2.2% on a year-over-year basis in October. By comparison, the benchmark price for townhouse/row units was $549,100, falling by 1.7% compared to a year earlier.

The average price of homes sold in October 2023 was $678,629, up by 6.5% from October 2022.

The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $641,285, a substantial decrease of 10% from the first 10 months of 2022.

The dollar value of all home sales in October 2023 was $52.3 million, was a small reduction of 1.2% from the same month in 2022.

The number of new listings increased by 5.9% (12 listings) from October 2022. There were 215 new residential listings in October 2023. This was also the largest number of new listings added in the month of October in history.

New listings were 25.6% above the five-year average and 42.9% above the 10-year average for the month of October.

Active residential listings numbered 458 units on the market at the end of October, a gain of 22.1% 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 57.6% above the five-year average and 39.5% above the 10-year average for the month of October.

Months of inventory numbered 5.9 at the end of October 2023, up from the 4.5 months recorded at the end of October 2022 and above the long-run average of 3.4 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.