Residential property sales recorded through the MLS System of the Barrie and District Association of REALTORS Inc. numbered 400 units in October 2015, an increase of one per cent (four sales) from October 2014. This was a new record for the month of October.

On a year-to-date basis home sales totalled 4,647 units over the first ten months of 2015. This was up 8.9 per cent from 2014 and puts Barrie on pace for the best year on record.

 

“2015 has been a record year for the Barrie and District housing market, with October sales marking the sixth monthly record this year,” said Bruce Shipley, President of the Barrie and District Association of REALTORS®. “Record level demand has drawn inventories down to their lowest level in over a decade. That combination has created some of the tightest market conditions the region has ever seen, and put prices on a track to advance by about 10 per cent this year.”

 

The year-to-date average price for all homes sold via the Association’s MLS® System in 2015 was $372,280, up 9.4 per cent from the same period in 2014.

 

The year-to-date average price figure for homes sold within the City of Barrie was $345,034. This was a 8.2 per cent increase compared to the year-to-date average selling price in 2014.

 

The year-to-date average price figure for the surrounding areas was $410,194, an increase of 10.7 per cent from the year-to-date average selling price in 2014.

 

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 October 2015 was $156.9 million, rising 15.4 per cent from year-ago levels. This was a new October record.

 

New residential listings were down 8.6 per cent from October 2014 to 581 units in October 2015.

 

Overall supply is currently trending at the lowest levels in more than a decade. Active residential listings on the Association’s MLS® System numbered 1,055 units at the end of October 2015, down 18.7 per cent from year-ago levels.

 

There were just 2.6 months of inventory at the end of October 2015, down from 3.3 months a year earlier and 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 415 units in October, up 2.0 per cent compared to October 2014. The total value of all properties sold in October 2015 was $163.9 million, up 18.1 per cent on a year-over-year basis.