2021 Home Sale Volume
The media, neighbours, family members have all been talking about the increase in prices in the real estate market. It seems that overnight that the prices took a jump, low supply and high demand making a lot of headlines and seems that we have been talking about that a lot in 2021.
A couple of weeks ago I took a look at the average increase in price per sub-area. Supply and demand (again there I go), each neighbourhood saw a different increase however the average jump was $177,000 for single-family homes compared to the previous 2 years average. Check it out on my blog here.
This week I am looking at the sheer amount of volume that has changed hands this year. This number is likely understated as this does not take into account off-market deals. I believe we are seeing a lot more these days than in previous years for a number of factors. I have personally completed a handful of deals that were never on the market, whether it was through an exclusive listing or going out and finding a buyer a home. Who knows where these numbers would be when factoring those numbers in.
As you can see from the chart above, the sale volume has significantly increased. With its highest point in March, however, inventory continues to be eaten away at and a lot of people had listed their homes in spring as it is often believed to be the best time to sell, which may or may not be true but that is a topic for another day. New listings have declined since March where we saw the peak of 1199 new listings and 1092 in May which is a normal new listing drop that goes in seasonal cycles.
Here is the number of listings by month over the last 5 years.
Taking these two things into account, supply has not really changed a great deal from prior years. It is pretty much following currently the same cycle as the last five years. What has changed, is demand, whether it be interest rates, people retiring to the Okanagan, or just people wanting to move here the dollar volume of sales is on a record pace. So far in 2021, there has been $2.8 Billion in the first 5 months of the year, not including the first 16 days of June. This is comparing it to last year where the total number of dollar volume that sold which has been the highest amount in the last 5 years was $3.9 Billion dollars in sales. This year barring unexpected changes should be the highest year yet. I mean we are already 72% of the way to that number. The moral of the story, we need more listings to keep up with the demand.
Have a great week and feel free to reach out!
-Mark