August 2021 Market Intelligence

Supply and demand still determine the average prices of Oakville real estate, Milton real estate and Burlington real estate and that will never change. What does change is the relationship that supply and demand has with volume and how that volume is broken up into sellers and buyers. If we have more sellers than buyers, it becomes a buyer’s market where prices are going down sharply. If we have more buyers than we have sellers then its a seller’s market where prices are rising. We measure this by calculating Months of Inventory. We want to know how many months it would take to sell every house for sale in Oakville, every house for sale in Milton, and every house for sale in Burlington.

A balanced market is normally defined by having 3-4 months of supply, meaning it would take 3-4 months to sell every house on the market. A buyer’s market is typically defined as having 5 months or more of inventory. A seller’s market is defined as having 2 months or less of inventory.

I am an Oakville real estate agent with a small team of two other real estate agents who also services the Milton and Burlington real estate markets so I like to start with the Oakville real estate market.

As you can see on the graph below, the number of Oakville houses for sale has remained quite low in relation to how many people want to buy houses in Oakville. The Months of Inventory (M.O.I.) has remained very low in the town of Oakville signalling a strong seller’s market even though the volume has decreased sharply over the summer months. 

This July (2021) we sold 323 houses in Oakville compared to 386 in June representing a 16% decline in the number of houses sold in Oakville month over month. Last July (2020) we sold 387 houses in Oakville which also represents a 16% decline year over year.

Our average sales price for July 2021 in Oakville was $1,416,779.00 which is down a bit from June 2021 by 1.4% or $21k and up from last July (2020) 16% or $195,400.

So let’s make some sense of these numbers. How can volume decrease by 16% month over month and the prices only decreased by 1.4%? Because of MOI or months of inventory. MOI went from 0.8 months in June to 0.9 months in July, still very much a seller’s market but the inventory did increase just a touch by 12%.

The average sales price of Oakville homes is $195,000 higher than a year ago even when sales volume decreased by 16% because Months of Inventory decreased by 53%, from 1.7 months to 0.8 months of inventory.

As you can see when buying or selling a home it’s important to look at inventory levels to determine the right strategy, for example if there are five neighbours on your street with their houses up for sale, you might want to wait it out and see what happens before you add your house to that overcrowded group of inventory. 

As a local Oakville realtor I study these levels in detail, not just for the Town of Oakville, but for individual neighbourhoods, housing types, lot sizes and even individual streets to ensure that I can provide better advice to get better results. 

View available Oakville Listings here :

https://www.michaelenglund.ca/listing?nopreset=1&key=city%3AOakville%2C%20ON

In the town of Milton where our realtor Hailey Green focuses her attention and resides, we sold 246 properties in July 2021 compared to 278 in June 2021 for a 12% decrease. The average selling price of a Milton property decreased from $1,035,476 down to $1,016,783 representing a 1.8% decline. The months of inventory actually decreased month over month to 0.5 months down from 0.6 months which is a 16% decrease. Normally when we see a decrease in months of inventory it translates to higher selling prices, so what this tells me is that the type of Milton homes for sale that were sold this month were on the whole simply less expensive than the model mix that was sold by all the Milton realtors last month.

Comparing the Milton real estate market to July 2020 there was a 17% decrease in the number of properties sold in Milton, but a 20% increase in the average price of a Milton property because of a 38% decrease in months of inventory. Sales volume is clearly not a great indicator of sales prices. Months of inventory is the best measure of what the real estate market is doing and the likelihood of what the future holds for prices.

Search Milton Listings here:https://www.michaelenglund.ca/listing?nopreset=1&key=city%3AMilton%2C%20ON

If you are thinking about buying a house in Burlington (or selling a house in Burlington) here’s what you need to know right now. First of all our sales person Sherry Wallace has 20 years of experience selling properties in Burlington and Oakville and Milton and she lives in Burlington and has a wealth of knowledge to share with any prospective clients.

Burlington realtors sold 263 properties in the City of Burlington in July 2021 which represents an 18% decrease in sales volume from June 2021. The average sales price of a Burlington property decreased by 0.8% from a month ago and the months of inventory stayed exactly the same at 0.7months of inventory.

Comparing July 2021 to July 2020, Burlington real estate agents sold 27% less properties this year than last but the average price increased by 16% since the months of inventory decreased by 22% from 0.9 to 0.7 months of inventory.

Search Burlington Listings here: https://www.michaelenglund.ca/listing?nopreset=1&key=city%3ABurlington%2C%20ON

What we learn from looking closely at these numbers is that while the volume of sales has decreased sharply with people taking vacations and perhaps taking advantage of more relaxed covid measures before the 4th wave ramps up, it seems that the number of buyer and the number of sellers have decreased in relative unison keeping the months of inventory largely unchanged and keeping the prices high.

If you or anyone you know is interested in meeting with anyone from our team of realtors, you should know that we strive to provide an unmatched quality of service in providing in depth analysis of the value of properties across Oakville, Milton, and Burlington. We pride ourselves on our ability to identify the quality of family homes in every price range. We are members of the Canadian Real Estate Association, The Oakville Milton Real Estate Board, The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board and of course Remax Aboutowne Realty Corp which is the most prolific real estate brokerage in Oakville and has been for many years.