5 Bullet Friday...Buyers are Over Bidding Wars

Welcome back Sudbury! 👋

Here are my 5 takeaways this week:

📉Another slow drop in stats this week. Sales dropped back to the low we saw 2 weeks ago; conditional deals were flat at just under 20 homes, while multiple offers dropped to the lowest ratio we’ve seen in over 2 months. New listings dropped as well to the same level we saw 2 weeks ago, which caused total listings available to drop close to 10% down to 261 homes. We are clearly seeing the market shift to homes that have been unable to sell in this market have sellers decide to pull the house off the market until next spring.

💰The drop in number of multiple offers this week is showing that a lot of buyers are frustrated and over with the idea of getting involved in bidding wars. We still see some houses play out with the list-low-and-hold-off-offers strategy, but with the shift in the market, this seems to be a strategy that is being used less and less. Buyers are jumping on deals if they are truly seeing value (significantly underpriced) but even in these scenarios they aren’t willing to pay crazy premiums. Think back to last week when we saw 24 offers on the place in the southend that was under priced (250k when its value was 325k-ish; even with all those offers, it only sold for 350k.

🐌The market feels very slow right now. With the cut in rates, it would make sense that more people would flow into the marketplace and look to buy with the incentive of lower payments or higher qualifications, but locally it doesn’t seem to be happening. We are hearing reports in Southern Ontario that the markets there are picking up from a slow August/September and seeing increased sales and home buyers in October. Anecdotally, what happens down HWY 69 eventually makes its way up to Sudbury. The bigger question is, will things rebound before the spring market, or will buyers opt to stay warm and put a hold on their home searches for a few months?

📊Looking at the stats for sales in October, we saw a big drop in Median sales price for the month. At the end of the summer, we were hovering at 430k, and then we saw a big pickup in September to 470k, but a big pull back to 430k median price in October. Our Mean-average price was still 481k and stayed flat on a 3-month rolling average, but it feels like a lot of buyers are only searching in the low 400k price range. Even in that range, they are extra picky on what they are searching for. We have a great listing beautifully renovated, an unbelievable deal at 450k. Because it's located in the downtown core, buyers aren’t interested in jumping on it, and it's still on the market after a few weeks.  This is a perfect example of the value of the home based on the recent sold homes supporting the value, but the buyers just aren’t lining up to see it or jump on it.

🤔Only 6 of the 33 homes that sold in the last week were over 550k price point. And of the homes that sold in the upper price range, they sold an average of 5% under asking price. Thats 10’s of thousands under asking price, compared to homes that sold under 550k selling on average at 103% of the sales price. Clearly we are seeing a tale of two markets going on right now. That doesn’t mean it's a bad time to be a step-up buyer; it's actually the exact opposite. When not many buyers are searching and there are deals to be had, maybe this is the perfect time to jump out ahead of the competition that is likely coming in the spring and look for a step-up home now. People get swept up in consumer sentiment, and when everyone is shopping and offering on homes, they feel like they need to be shopping and jumping on homes too, and when everyone seems afraid to be out there shopping, people will stay on the sidelines. What I’ve learned is when everyone thinks it's the best time to buy, that's likely a terrible time and when people are afraid to jump in, that just may be the best opportunity.    

Have a great week Sudbury, we’ll see you next week!