Market is HOT HOT HOT….Update March 2016

Residential property sales recorded through the MLS® System of the Barrie & District Association of REALTORS® Inc. numbered 553 units in March 2016, an increase of 22.6 per cent from March 2015. This was the most active month of March on record.
Within the City of Barrie, sales activity rose 16.4 per cent on a year-over-year basis. The City of Barrie saw 320 residential sales in March. A year-over-year increase of 37.5 per cent was recorded in surrounding areas, where sales activity totalled 242 units.
“While home sales have recently been trending at or at least very near record levels, March was in a league of its own, rewriting the old record for the month set back in 2010 by almost 20 per cent,” said the, President of the Barrie and District Association of REALTORS®. “While we know the demand is definitely there and very strong, there is some question as to whether activity will be able to repeat the strength we saw in March for the simple fact that there may not be enough properties for people to buy. The stock of listings on the market at the end of the month is now under 1,000 which makes for less than two months of inventory. That’s almost unprecedented, so new listings will play a critical role in the months ahead. Meanwhile, with the market currently the tightest it’s ever been, competition among buyers is leading to double digit price gains.”
The year-to-date average price for all homes sold via the Association’s MLS® System was $400,236, up 15 per cent from March 2015.
The year-to-date average price figure for homes sold within the City of Barrie was $379,227. This was a 17.2 per cent increase compared to the average selling price in the first quarter of 2015.
The year-to-date average price figure for the surrounding areas in 2016 was $430,407, an increase of 11.8 per cent from the average selling price in the first quarter of 2015.
The Barrie & District Association of REALTORS® cautions that over a period of time, the use of average price information can be useful in establishing trends, but it does not indicate actual prices in widely divergent areas or account for price differentials between geographical areas.
The dollar value of all home sales in March 2016 was $225.5 million, rising 41.1 per cent from year-ago levels. This also was the highest March on record and the first time volumes in this month have ever risen above the $200 million mark.
New residential listings were unchanged from March 2015 at 819 units in March 2016.
Overall supply is currently trending near the lowest levels on record. Active residential listings on the Association’s MLS® System numbered 921 units at the end of March 2016, down 25.4 per cent from year-ago levels.
There were just 1.7 months of inventory at the end of March 2016, down from 2.7 months a year earlier and well below the long-run average for this time of year. The
number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
Sales of all property types in the Barrie region numbered 573 units in March, up 24 per cent compared to March 2015. The total value of all properties sold in March 2016 was $230.9 million, up 41.6 per cent on a year-over-year basis.
The Barrie and District Association of REALTORS® Inc. covers a geographical area that includes the City of Barrie and part or all of the surrounding townships, including Springwater, Oro-Medonte, Innisfil, Essa, Bradford-West Gwillimbury and Clearview. The Association provides continuing education, Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®), statistical information, and many other services to its members.