Thursday, September 9, 2021

Best August for St. Thomas Home Sales, LSTAR Apartments

925 homes traded hands last month via LSTAR's MLS® system, marking the second best August for home sales since LSTAR started tracking data, back in 1978. However, the pace of sales was slower than in August 2020, with the median number of days spent by a home on the market sitting at 9, compared to only 8 days last year.

"The number of August residential transactions decreased by 4.3% over the same period last year, but, despite this slight change of pace, average and benchmark prices continued to climb," said 2021 LSTAR President Jack Lane. "The overall average home price in LSTAR's jurisdiction for August 2021 was $620,002, and the composite benchmark price - $586,800. These increases were undoubtedly caused by the very low housing supply and the sky-high demand," he added.

"Beside prices, when analyzing the market activity in LSTAR's five main regions, we are also looking at the Sales-to-New-Listings ratio recorded in each region. The higher this ratio is, the more that region favours Sellers," he pointed out. "Currently, all LSTAR's regions are firmly anchored in Sellers' territory, with London seeing the highest ratio - 94.6%, followed by St. Thomas - with 90.1%," he emphasized.

In total, LSTAR saw 1,020 new listings last month, 1.4% less than in August 2020. The overall number of months of inventory continued to decrease, reaching a new record low at the end of August: 0.6. "This means that, at the current rate of sales activity, it would take less than a month to liquidate the entire existing housing inventory of LSTAR," Lane explained.

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