High Prices Cause Listings To Surge in Hamilton Real Estate Market
The Hamilton real estate market in recent years has been outshone by Toronto’s real estate market. But recently, the Hamilton market has become one of the hottest in the country, with prices climbing month after month. While the red-hot market caused a shortage of houses for a time, it now seems that high prices are causing listings to soar and sales to level off for the moment.
For all intents and purposes, the sales market has remained consistent compared to last year, although it is still miles above historic sales figures. There were 1,745 homes sold in Hamilton in May, which was 1.4% fewer than 2016’s number. But, this is still more than 200 sales higher than the ten-year average for the month of May.
Listings Skyrocketing in Hamilton
It may be safe to assume that many homeowners in Hamilton are hoping to cash in on the rising prices and demand for homes in the area. The increase in new listings in the city for the month of May as compared to 2016 is almost unprecedented. There were 3,208 new homes listed for sale this May, which is 41.1% more than the number that were listed the previous May.
Despite such a huge surge in new homes going up for sale on the market, listings are overall only up very slightly. Another interesting phenomenon is that they’re actually staying available for ever shorter amounts of time – the average home is only lasting on the market for 16 days. This is down from the already short 22 days that homes were lasting on the market on average last year.
Prices Climbing Despite Increased Listings and Stable Sales
Although some of the statistics would seem to indicate that a rise in prices would not be in the cards for Hamilton, the opposite is in fact the case. The decrease in average days on market, however, seems to be in agreement with the rising trend in home prices. The average price of detached homes in Hamilton was 24.8% higher on a year-over-year basis this May, landing at $604,848.
Overall, Hamilton is an extremely hot market heading into the summer of 2017. As people get priced out of the Toronto market, Hamilton is becoming an increasingly attractive option. As owners see the prices climb, more and more are trying to cash in on the opportunity to make a significant profit on their homes, resulting in the huge bump in listings currently being observed.
