August 2020 continues to be unusually active, much as July was. In fact, there was the exact same number of sales in the two months in the Victoria Board Region. Given the pressure of high sales volumes, even though we saw more people list their homes, there continued to be a decrease in available listing month over month. August was different than July in one important metric though, Benchmark Home Price. Though not a significant drop in month to month price, August did see the first decrease since the start of the year.
There were 979 total sales in both August and July 2020 (979 each), a 48.1% increase compared to August 2019. Breaking it down by property type, there were 509 single family homes sales and 262 condo sales, the former up 45% and the latter 29.1% compared to the same month last year.
Inventory, on the other hand, decreased by 2.6% from the previous month and 8.9% from the same month the previous year. This is not too surprising, despite the increase of people listing their homes given the very high sales numbers. Supply just can't keep up. On a brighter note, the inventory of single family homes specifically, did increase in the last month.
As for Benchmark Price according to the Home Price Index, we saw the first month to month decrease since the start of 2020 for single family homes. Though up year over year by 4.7% there was a 2.3% decrease in Benchmark price from July to hit $849,200 in August. Condo's were down 3.2% from last month and 0.8% from last year, hitting $513,900 this August.
There is lots happening in this market and it is certainly unusual times. The market will continue to be somewhat unpredictable in the near future as we don't know how the government will handle the end of CERB or what will happen when mortgage deferrals come into effect. Low mortgage rates are certainly inciting many potential buyers into the market and there is still the tail ends of pent up demand from the slow spring in play. Though the near future may be somewhat unpredictable, we can tell by the numbers and our experience in the market that many homes are selling with low days on the market and often in multiple offers. If you are thinking about selling your home, today is definitely a good time.
Give us a call or inquire through our website to have someone from our team come for a complimentary consultation on how best to sell your home.
All the best,
The Love Team