The roller coaster ride that is the Chatham-Kent real estate market took a plunge last month.
In the wake of a sizzling January in terms of home sales, winter’s freeze set in for February, as just 66 residences changed hands.
That’s down by 24 per cent from February 2024, and in contrast to January, which was up 34 per cent from the same month last year.
Thanks to the strong January, sales for the first two months of 2025 mirrored those for 2024.
Barbara McCaughrin, president of the Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors, points to the turmoil created by U.S. President Donald Trump as a big impact on the market.
“The threat of a trade war loomed large in February, weighing on the sentiment of buyers and sellers alike who withdrew to the sidelines,” she said in a media release. “With the volatility of tariffs and Canada instituting counter tariffs of its own, there is a significant amount of uncertainty regarding the outlook on our economic prospects and labour market. We expect to see a further loss of momentum in our housing market in the near future as people take a wait-and-see approach to the fallout from the trade war.”
One piece of good news coming from last month’s home sales was the average price of homes sold. That made a small gain of 2.3 per cent compared to February 2042, coming in at $418,711.
The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $444,901, increasing by nearly 10 per cent from the first two months of 2024.
The number of new listings was down sharply as well in February, by nearly 19 per cent. There were 143 new residential listings in February. This was the lowest number of new listings added in the month of February in more than five years.
Active residential listings numbered 351 units on the market at the end of February, a minor increase of three per cent from the end of February 2024. Active listings haven’t been this high in the month of February in more than five years.
