A slowdown in the national housing market isn’t necessarily being seen in Chatham-Kent.
Steve Carroll, President of the Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors says a lack of homes for sale is keeping the competition high.
“The only reason that you could say it would be cooling down here is because we have such a low inventory,” says Carroll. “Sales are still very strong, prices are still increasing. For the first 6 months of this year, our prices are up 5.8% compared to the first 6 months of 2017. The problem is the number of listings. We had around 206 active residential listings at the end of June, which is around half of where we would normally be.”
Carroll says nearly one-third of local home sales from the past 12 months are from people outside Chatham-Kent.
If you’re planning on selling your home anytime soon, Carroll has some words of advice.
“Unless people know exactly what they’re doing, where they’re going, if they put their home on the market and plan to buy a larger home or a smaller home, they better have a good idea of what’s out there and what’s available. Homes are selling very very quickly for very good prices, but you want to know where you’re going [before you sell],” Carroll says.