Well, the last 10 months have certainly been the craziest of times. And now the most confusing. And definitely surprising – especially from a real estate perspective. Who would have predicted that a pandemic would impact local real estate markets the way it has ours here in Centre Wellington? Unprecedented demand – combined with not enough homes available for sale – has resulted in pricing we have not seen before in our area – particularly on homes under $ 1 million. And early indications are 2021 is going to be a similar situation.

While we have not had much activity in the first couple of weeks in Centre Wellington, the activity we have had speaks volumes. A home that would have sold in the high $500,000’s last year just sold for over $ 700,000. A home that would have sold in the low $ 500,000’s a year ago sells for well into the $ 600,000’s. A home already priced at the top end of value in the high $ 700,000’s sells in the high $ 800,000’s. We even saw a multiple offer situation of 5 offers on a property priced over $ 1 million. I could go on – but you get the point – things have gone a bit crazy out there.

Now, not every home is seeing results like this. But updated homes that show well – and country homes – are getting rewarded with the highest prices we have ever seen. Having said that, 2021 will be a good time to sell a fixer upper as well. And it’s not just our local market of course – in January 2021, we have situations in Guelph where a single home is getting 37 offers – even 46 offers! Great for sellers – if they have somewhere to move to. But not an ideal situation for buyers – certainly not first time buyers. I’m not sure what the answer is for first time buyers to be honest. But it seems the advice ” the best time to buy real estate was yesterday ” still rings true.

Affordability, of course, is a major issue, there is no denying that. ( Condos have underperformed the market in general lately – but long term, this will change. So an opportunity for some first time buyers may currently be the condo market.) There are some who are predicting house prices are going to see major drops. Based on what I see in our area – I don’t think so. Too much demand – and not enough homes for sale. Prices just keep on going up.

During a pandemic when the economy is struggling. Locally , we are seeing a record number of new homes being built. And pre-sales are extremely strong. But many of those won’t be ready until 2022 – so that does not help with the current supply/demand problem. And as the economy recovers, real estate activity is only going to strengthen. So while one should never say never, lower prices are not in the cards in our market for the foreseeable future.

For straight forward, honest real estate advice, give me a call anytime at 519-766-3716.