3rd Quarter 2018 South Georgian Bay Real Estate Market

With three quarters of the year now behind us, it is a good time to take a deeper look into changes in the South Georgian Bay real estate market this year. there have been four interest rate hikes and most notably, the introduction of the new mortgage stress test rules.  These were designed to cool an over-heated market and that has been accomplished with a return to more balanced conditions.  Below are charts showing activity for the month of September as well as year-to-date results versus 2017.

While there are some exceptions, generally speaking, we can see that the number of sales is down in most areas with prices holding steady or up marginally. We’ve seen a shift in market strength to the communities such as Meaford and Wasaga Beach where prices are traditionally lower than in Collingwood or the Town of Blue Mountains.  I would suspect this is the beginning of some price resistance in the latter two areas.  An exception is to the increased prices these past few months of condos in the Town of Blue Mountain.  Much of this has stemmed from investors buying investment condos at or near to the mountain at top dollars where the demand exceeds supply if they are units where short-term rentals are permitted.

Have a look below at the charts, by area, showing both September sales activity and year-to-date sales activity.  One thing that jumps out at me is that the “inventory” of properties for sale is way up from one year ago.  Supply has been increasing while demand, based on reduced sales, is declining.  Are these headwinds appearing of a softening in the market ahead or, just a return to normalcy after a frenzied two years in the market.  Let me know what YOU think.