Weekly Wrap Up...Factoring Out the Media & Noise of What's Being Reported Nationally

July 13 - 17th Trends & Activity

Wow, I feel like I’ve blinked and its already mid-July. Maybe it's the late nights running out to show houses that were supposed to be holding off offers, but sellers are presented and choose to deal with bully offers (an agent and their excited buyers decided to bypass the offer date with a bully offer; forcing us to ‘see it tonight or miss your chance’). Seeing a listing hit the market and not have an offer date is the rarity now (something that if you’ve been following this weekly email was unheard of 12 weeks ago in our market). With historic low-interest rates, pent up demand from buyers who’ve outgrown their home after being cooped up for 4 months, and buyers FOMO (fear of missing out) at an all-time high; it starts to paint a picture of the chaos we have seen over the last few weeks. 

But the chaos can’t last forever, and I keep feeling that any week now we are going to see the trend in numbers start shifting away from the seller's market we are currently in; and back to a more balanced market. As a glimmering of hope for that; Wednesday and Thursday were the first time that the numbers as a whole saw more listings than sales in our market in a long time, it does feel like the market activity is ever so slightly starting to slow down; at least from the emails and phone calls our office has seen towards the end of this week.

New listings were the highest we have seen in the last 7 weeks. That was a bit surprising; usually, we hit a peak of new listings in the spring and that tapers off as we progress into summer. We’ve chatted before how COVID has caused the spring market to have shifted into the summer market, but to see the new listings spike again I believe steps from to 2 potential reasons. The first one being sellers aren’t concerned with selling during COVID (anymore); and are ok to move ahead with listing their home, (which may have been their previous fear). Second, sellers are seeing the premiums in the market and are realizing that they can be selling for a big $ right now, and aren’t afraid to act now.

It’s been a trend that I’ve seen more and more in the last week, but sellers who are holding off offers (waiting for offer night) are now adding in a condition of ‘suitable accommodation’. It’s kind of a reverse condition of needing to sell your home to buy a new one, the seller has a specific home in mind and they are selling only if they get that property. This supports the later point made in the bullet above, sellers are seeing that they can get a premium for the current home and either looking to take that equity and downsize or possibly jump up to a bigger place or waterfront home, they see now as the chance to do it.

Multiple offers were down this week, although sales were down as well. When I started to review the week of sales, the sales-above asking didn’t feel quite as shocking as they have in the past week (maybe I’m growing accustomed to the massive over-bids).

 Real estate markets across the country seem to be in the same position as Sudbury currently is, With listings down, prices up and bidding wars all over. One of our principal beliefs at Lake City Realty is being an Expert and focusing on what we know; and because that I don’t want to comment on the housing market Nationally, but I don’t mind giving my 2 cents locally. There is a lot of prediction (CMCH and Big Banks specifically) about a big correction after this pent-up demand subsides.  Unemployment numbers being one of the main statistics that continue to be referenced, and even though Sudbury is doing much better than the provincial average (almost 4% better), our unemployment rate is still the worst it’s been in a decade.  If prices across the province and across the country do fall off from the highs we are currently seeing, I don’t believe Sudbury will have the same effect.  We have been stagnate and flat with our prices for so long that I think a lot of our price appreciation is just playing catch up to the rest of the markets around us.  The tough part will be to factor out the media and noise of what is being reported on a national level, and what is actually happening at a local level.

Sudbury in the Summer is something truly amazing, and with bell park opening up and gatherings getting slightly larger; I hope you stay safe and enjoy yourself to the fullest.