813 homes traded hands in February 2022 in the jurisdiction of
the London and St Thomas Association of REALTORS®, only 8 units less than in
the second month of 2021, which was LSTAR's best February for home sales ever.
"Even though last month our residential transactions fell
short by a few units from reaching a new peak, February 2022 succeeded to set
quite a few new records," says Randy Pawlowski, 2022 LSTAR President.
"This was the February with the highest number of new listings in the
history of LSTAR, but also the one with the lowest housing inventory and the
lowermost number of active listings at month-end," he continued.
1,021 new listings came on the market this month, but only 408
were still active as of February 28. The number of inventory months remained at
0.5 - unchanged from the previous month.
"These numbers illustrate perfectly the acute imbalance
between the high demand for homes in our area and the severe housing supply
shortage we're facing," Pawlowski emphasized. "In such conditions,
average prices and benchmark prices can't go anywhere else, but up," he
added.
In February, the overall average price for all home types in our
area was $825,221, whereas LSTAR's composite MLS® Home Price Index Benchmark
Price sat at $749,000.
During the same month, while the Sales-to-New-Listings ratio for
LSTAR's entire jurisdiction was a bit lower than in February 2021 - 79.6% last
month versus 86.2% in February 2021, the Sale-to-List-Price ratio increased by
9% over the same period, reaching a new record high of 123%.
"These percentages show how firmly anchored our local real
estate market is in Sellers' territory and how much the home Buyers are willing
to go over the asking price to get in the market," Pawlowski said.
