We’re starting to see some shifts taking place in our local market. As expected, the number of homes on the market has gone down significantly when heading into the holiday season in December. And this is because everyone shifts their focus to having some quiet time with friends and family, and many people will decide to put their real estate needs on pause. This is actually really clear when you look at Google searches for real estate topics, it really drops in December.

And you’ll also notice in this graph, just how quickly it comes roaring back in January. So even though we were still living through some lockdown measures, people on the hunt for their next home were anxious to get their search back underway in the new year.

This meant when that first home hit the market, there were a lot of motivated buyers who jumped on the opportunity. A good example is actually one of the first homes they hit the market in Salazar, they received at least 20 offers and had about 75 visits. After that, what we saw is that each subsequent home that hit the market kind of had a little bit less than less. There are a few key factors at play here:

1. As all these homes continue to get sold, it represents one less buyer each time.
2. Recent interest rate hikes have an impact on affordability for buyers as well. In other words, higher interest rates means higher monthly payments, the same price home, which reduces the number of potential buyers at each price point.
3. With the rate of inflation driving up the cost of many regular living expenses. Many buyers are considering cooling off on their purchase plans until there’s more certainty and just how much impact this is going to have.

With all this said, we are still seeing what can only be defined as a seller’s market. Homes are still receiving multiple offers and prices are continuing to climb. However, what I’ve actually been noticing myself in the last few weeks is we’re seeing some signs or maybe some very early signs of the market cooling off ever so slightly. Let’s now take a look at some of the numbers showing what has happened in our market since the start of 2022:

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If we look at median sale price in 2021 versus 2022 for sales or Hudson edible dry you can see a significant increase in price.

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Peter Thompson