Simcoe & District Real Estate Board

The number of homes sold through the MLS® System of the Simcoe & District Real Estate Board totaled 134 units in March 2021. This was up sharply by 65.4% from March 2020 and was a new sales record for the month of March.

On a year-to-date basis, home sales totaled a record 283 units over the first three months of the year. This was a notable gain of 38.7% from the same period in 2020.

"March was yet another record setting month for MLS® market activity in our region." said Gail Bouw, President of the Simcoe & District Real Estate Board. "Homes sales set a new monthly record for March. We also saw a marked increase in the number of newly listed resale homes this past month. Which helped to halt the persistent month over month decline in overall inventory that started back in July 2020. The twin factors of strong demand and low levels of listings, continue to preserve the tightest market conditions in our board’s history as we navigate into a hot spring market."

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 $490,800 in March 2021, rising 33.1% compared to March 2020.

The benchmark price for single-family homes was $489,900, advancing 33% on a year-over-year basis in March. By comparison, the benchmark price for townhouse/row units was $567,900, an improvement of 47.2% compared to a year earlier.

The average price of homes sold in March 2021 was $593,928, considerably higher by 28% from March 2020.

The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $589,421, rising 33.2% from the first three months of 2020.

The dollar value of all home sales in March 2021 was $79.6 million, more than double the levels from a year earlier, surging 111.7% from the same month in 2020. This was also a new record for the month of March.

The number of new listings was up by 18.5% from March 2020. There were 173 new residential listings in March 2021. This was the largest number of new listings added in the month of March in more than five years.

Active residential listings numbered 89 units on the market at the end of March, a substantial decline of 64% from the end of March 2020. Active listings haven't been this low in the month of March in more than three decades.

Months of inventory numbered 0.7 at the end of March 2021, down from the 3 months recorded at the end of March 2020 and below the long-run average of 4.5 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.