LSTAR Home Sales on Track for a Record Year

In September 2021, the London and St. Thomas Association of REALTORS® (LSTAR) experienced another solid month, with 864 residential transactions recorded via its MLS® system. "This value, which represents the second-highest number of homes sold in the month of September in LSTAR's jurisdiction since 1978, puts us on track for a record year. In the first nine months of this year, 8,756 homes traded hands in our area, which is an unprecedented total for our September year-to-date figures," said 2021 LSTAR President Jack Lane.

1,057 new listings came on the local market last month, on par with the values seen in the pre-pandemic years. However, at the end of the month, there were only 628 active listings left - the lowest amount of active listings ever seen by LSTAR in September. "These figures show clearly that houses in our area are in very short supply. The shortage is also demonstrated by the very low number of months of inventory - 0.6, which indicates that, at the current sales pace, it would take only a  bit over two weeks to liquidate the entire existing housing inventory of LSTAR," explained Lane.

Both benchmark and average sales prices continued to rise last month. In September, the overall average home price for LSTAR was $690,861, while the LSTAR composite MLS® HPI benchmark price sat at $596,400.

"Aside from prices, when analyzing the market activity in LSTAR's five main regions, we are also looking at the median number of days on market recorded in each region. This number reveals how many days it usually takes to sell a home in a certain area. Except for Elgin, this number was between 7 and 8 days," Lane added.

The single-family home remains on top of the local buyers' preferences, with 648 sales in September. "Yet, it is worth mentioning that, so far, both condo townhouses and apartments had their best year ever, with 1,087 and 812 units respectively exchanging hands year-to-date," Lane noted.