Active inventory is up... and is up a fair bit.
As of 4:15pm on May 23, 2024, the active listing count for residential properties in Newmarket is 251. This is the highest active inventory has been since October 2019, when there was 272 active listings as the market was starting to heat up after the ice cold market of 2018, when active listings peaked in May 2018 with 531 active listings in Newmarket alone.
Sales are also sluggish in May, having only had 62 sales reported month-to-date with only 7 days left. At this rate, we are expecting to see only about 85 sales reported in May, which will be down from the 105 reported SOLD in April 2024 and down by alot from the May 2023 sales of 115.
Why the sluggishness? I would attribute it to buyers feeling less pressured to make a purchase quickly as there are more options for them to consider, but also the fatigue from trying to figure out what the price of homes are as there are still a few sellers/agents pricing homes at unrealistically low prices to generate a bidding war. This strategy works when inventory is low, but not so much when buyers can just go look at another house that has a realistic price expectation.
Prices are down MTD on average from the end of April, but not a significant amount. We are not expecting prices to rebound soon as the number of homes for sale to continue to grow, giving Buyers even more options to choose from, and in some cases being homes at discounted prices if there is a motivated seller.
Interest rates have been rumoured to be coming down in the summer (maybe June or July), but we don't see that having a drastic affect on the market in the short term as the supply of homes is outweighing the demand and if active inventory rises above 300 in Newmarket, I would consider the market to be more of a Buyers Market.
Aurora inventory is still below where their inventory was in October 2023, when there was 210 active listings, but has also been slowly growing as well from the winter slowdown.
