The local real estate market limped into the first part of 2025, with January sales trending behind 2024. Take your pick for the reasons why: cold weather, the impact of concerning comments from our neighbour to the south, political uncertainty here at home – or a combination of all the above.

Or perhaps buyers just aren’t ready to jump due to pricing on homes out there. Affordability issues still persist. And people generally don’t rush out to buy when there are concerns about future employment.

But buyers aren’t the only ones off to a slow start this year. Other than new Elora Mill condo listings (which are not selling very quickly yet on the resale market), many of the listings hitting the market are re-lists of homes that didn’t sell in 2024. A limited number of brand new listings have come to market so far.

In our market, the majority of sales in January were bungalows, while a majority of new non-condo listings were 2 storey homes – primarily in the newer subdivisions. And almost all the sales were under $1 million. Again, overall sales numbers were very low – so one has to be careful in reading too much into any specific trends. I did predict this year would get off to a slower start, so at least I got one prediction right.

Notwithstanding the headwinds we face, I still expect we will see a significant increase in both listing and sales activity the beginning of March – maybe even the last part of February if the weather cooperates.

Colleagues in larger markets like Toronto are starting to see increased activity already – so it may be just a matter of time before that momentum reaches out to our market.

I am having a lot of conversations with new seller clients right now – with major discussion points being timing and pricing. Staging is very important of course – so we are booking several staging consultations as I write this article.

I expect pricing to remain pretty much flat in our area in 2025. I have pushed most of my new listings into March at this point. As previously predicted, I continue to expect overall sales activity for the remainder of 2025 will outperform 2024.

Wondering what you should do to get your home ready for market in 2025? Feel free to reach out for advice. While I am a big believer in staging (never sell a house vacant; remember, I stage your home at no extra cost), I also don’t want you spending time and money on things that won’t change the selling outcome from a price perspective.

Before I sign off, I just want to touch on Estates & Probate. In my business, I deal with a lot of estates. As part of settling an estate/probate, your lawyer will often require that you get a valuation for any real estate. For properties in the Centre Wellington area, I will provide a comprehensive valuation with comparables for your lawyer, at NO COST to you – and absolutely no obligation. Call me if you need this service.

Until next month, take care.

George