The weather may have cooled off last month, but Chatham-Kent’s real estate market melted any ice, as home sales were up more than 37 per cent from December of 2019.
A total of 85 units changed hands last month, according to the Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors (CKAR). That set a new sales record for the month of December.
“MLS resale home sales in Chatham-Kent set a new monthly record in December. The lack of inventory throughout 2020 played a huge part in this increase,” said Laura Tourangeau incoming president of CKAR, in a media release. “Once again, new listings could not keep up with the pace of sales in December, reducing overall inventory to below 100 homes for the first time in over 30 years. The current lack of active listings is acting as a constraint on our local market, sustaining some of the tightest market conditions we have ever seen in our region.”
On an annual basis, home sales totaled 1,344 units over the course of 2020, up 13 sales from the previous year.
The average price of homes sold in December 2020 was a record $344,951, rising 27.8 per cent from December 2019.
The more comprehensive annual average price was $310,244, rising 23.4 per cent from all of 2019.
The dollar value of all home sales in December 2020 was $29.3 million, an increase of 75.2 per cent from the same month in 2019. This was also a new record for the month of December.
There were 76 new residential listings in December 2020, up just two listings from the end of December 2019.
Active residential listings numbered 88 units at the end of December. This was a decline of 48.2 per cent from the end of December 2019.
“Active listings haven’t been this low in the month of December in more than 25 years,” Tourangeau said.
