(Ontario Real Estate Source)
By Brian Madigan LL.B.
How is the real estate market this year? That's a simple enough question. While many will respond by referring to the latest week or the latest month, the true measure of the 2011 market, at this time is to look at the first quarter numbers and compare that to other first quarters in previous years.
Sometimes, some of the February sales take place in January and sometimes some of them take place in March. Such "fine tuning" can distort the results and lead to erroneous conclusions.
Let's see how many homes have sold in the first quarter of the year since 2004:
2004..........19,392
2005..........18,238
2006..........20,050
2007..........21,397
2008..........17,721
2009..........14,897
2010..........22,667
2011.........19,865
The average number of first quarter sales is 18,278. That means that the first quarter in 2011 is 3.04% higher than the average over the last eight years. In fact, there are four higher, so this year is right at the median.
You will notice that 2009 is quite low. That was at the height of the recession, and the markets have now recovered.
What does this mean? It simply indicates that the market is strong and continues to be steady and predicable. Wild swings, soaring prices and crashes really don't help anybody. Unfortunately, that has happened in many US markets, but, not here. Prices, by the way are higher than they have ever been.
So, oddly enough, this is one of those times, when it's both good to buy and good to sell.
Brian Madigan LL.B., Broker is an author and commentator on real estate matters, if you are interested in residential or commercial properties in Mississauga, Toronto or the GTA, you may contact him through Royal LePage Innovators Realty, Brokerage 905-796-8888
www.OntarioRealEstateSource.com
