All real estate is local. The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) allows you to see more accurate price trends for a specific type of house in a given region, municipality or neighbourhood than using average or median price measures. Each month, the CREA Café will highlight one community to offer a snapshot of the Canadian housing market.
Home sales in Cornwall, Ontario are at the highest levels since 2016, however the demand is putting pressure on supply and driving the average price up.
Residential sales activity in the area served by the Cornwall and District Real Estate Board totaled 182 units in May 2019. This was an increase of 22.1% from May 2018 and stood above both the five and 10-year averages for the month.
On a year-to-date basis, home sales totalled 578 units over the first five months of the year, up 11.2% from the same period in 2018 and above 2017 as well.
“Home sales so far this year are running at the highest levels since 2016, and that is drawing down on the supply of listings on the market,” said Helen MacLeod, President of the Cornwall Real Estate Board. “In fact, overall supply is now at a record low, as is the number of months of inventory, which fell below three months for the first time ever in May 2019. As such, May’s record average price should come as no surprise, and we can reasonably expect prices to heat up even further in the second half of the year.”
The average price of homes sold in May 2019 was a record $249,986, up 8.4% from May 2018.
The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $228,537, rising 5% from the first five months of 2018.
There were 256 new residential listings in May 2019, a decrease of 12.3% on a year-over-year basis and a 16-year low for the month.
Active residential listings numbered 509 units at the end of May, down 15.6% from the end of May 2018 and the lowest level for this time of the year on record going back to the late 1980s.
Months of inventory numbered just 2.8 at the end of May 2019, down from the four months recorded at the end of May 2018 and the lowest reading ever for this measure. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
The dollar value of all home sales in May 2019 was $45.5 million, a new all-time record and a jump of 32.4% from the same month in 2018.
The Cornwall and District Real Estate Board covers a large area, including the City of Cornwall and the counties of Stormont, Glengarry, Prescott and part of Dundas. It’s uniquely situated next to the Quebec and U.S. borders, with the scenic St. Lawrence River running along the south and the Ottawa River along the north.
For a full list of statistics for Cornwall as well as other Housing Market Stats, please visit creastats.ca.
