Afraid of the Market? Don't be!

What's happening in the Halifax-Dartmouth real estate market? We're diving into the stats for January 2023!

Hey Halifax, Brenda K here with the Halifax Home Selling Group.

Oh my God, where did January go? I can't believe January is gone already! So what happened in January in the Halifax-Dartmouth real estate market? WOW! Well let me tell you, it was quite a different January than it was last year, so let's take a look and see what's going on here. Active listings: we have 533 active listings right now, and as you can see, last year we were at 179 listings. The number of unit sales this year is 182, as opposed to 242 last year, and you can really see the difference in the inventory, as well as unit sales.

So what is going on? Is everybody just kind of sitting back and thinking, "What is going on with the market?" Well, the market is really strong here in Halifax still; even at 533 active listings, we still have a decent amount of inventory; there's just a shortage in certain price ranges, which we will discuss later. We also are still seeing that excessive demand which is another factor at play here.

A lot of people are holding back, thinking, "Oh, I'm going to wait until interest rates come down." Well, you may need to adjust to the new world of interest rates. Historically, interest rates are unlikely to fall precipitously, particularly given the current trajectory.

Alright, back to the stats for January 2023: The average days on the market are sitting at 44 days, so we are up 20 days since this time last year. And further to that, I do a Monday market update every Monday for Halifax-Dartmouth, and I've noticed the days on market really have gone from anywhere from 28 to 41 in just one week, so they really are constantly changing, depending on what's available on the market.

Looking at months of inventory, if nothing else was listed, we currently have 1.3 months of supply, whereas last year we had one third of a month.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. So again, we are seeing low inventory and the demand out pace the supply in some circumstances. 

The average price, and I really want to talk about it in depth, let's start with January 2020, so this was the first year of the pandemic, and the average price was $338k, and we are currently at around $549k average sale price for January 2023. So, if you'll take a detour with me, you've got over $200k in real estate value growth, on average within the past few years and further to that, the list-to-sell price ratio is still at 98%, so like I said earlier, we are still very much in a strong market. We even saw a bidding war with more than 30 offers on a semi-detached in Cole Harbour just last week.

I want to also talk a bit about appreciation, so on our stats you'll see a -5.2% for appreciation year-over-year, and I really want to talk about this more. This does not mean the value of your home is going down. You are not losing value in your home. I'm not going to lie, if you bought a home in the frenzy of the pandemic, if you are expecting to sell it this year for the same amount of money, you may run into obstacles. Even 10–15 years ago in real estate, if you bought a house one year, could you sell it the following year and and make money on it? No, typically, you couldn't. It would take anywhere from three to five years to get that level of appreciation, that you could say, "All right, I've got enough equity, I want to sell my home."

The long and the short of it, we feel that Halifax is normalizing, we're not dropping and we're not declining, we're normalizing! With the pandemic settling down, the frenzy has also settled down, but are we still strong in the Halifax market? You're darn right we are! We are in a crunch for homes between $350k and $500k, we have buyers that are crying to get into homes, and we have no inventory within that price range. So let me tell you, I'm a baby boomer, and if you're a baby boomer too, you've been in your neighbourhood a long time now. Are you starting to think, "Is this an ideal time to sell?" because these young couples are out there and they're looking to buy,  they're looking to build their real estate wealth and you can help with that if you're ready to downsize!

I'm Brenda K with the Halifax Home Selling Group and I thank you so much for tuning in to my monthly updates! If you'd like to know what's going on in your neighborhood or you'd like to book an appointment with us, click the calendar link below let's grab a coffee! We can talk real estate, we can talk about you. Hey listen, we can talk about French Bulldogs if you want! I'm Brenda K I will see you next month! Cheers 902-471-8497

Watch the full video update here --- > https://youtu.be/zySqn5Jbulg

Want to connect with us? Click here ---> https://calendly.com/brendak1/coffee-with-brenda-k?month=2023-02