Welcome back to our monthly update on the state of this unprecedented market.

I’m going to do something a bit different this month. Normally when we pull out the Housing Market Charts, I compare our current month’s stats with both the previous month, and the year over year comparison. Both have pertinent information from which to draw some insights. However, I think that we can learn something about this market by comparing where we are today in relation to 2020.

If you pull out the attachment that is included in this email, you will find 4 charts. They are bar charts that show the previous 3 year’s comparison. Let’s take the first one as an example, the sales chart. This chart is showing the number of sales in each of the 12 months, going back to the beginning of 2020. I don’t have to remind anybody what was going on at that time. What’s important to look at in this chart is that for the first 3 months of 2020 it looked like a typical start to the year. January was seasonally slow, February started picking up momentum, and March was gearing up for an active spring. Then April hit and trading in real estate came to a virtual standstill. May wasn’t much better given we were in the heart of the most active time of the year. But all of a sudden we bounce back in June and the market soared for the next 21 months. Each of the 3 other bar charts follows the same sort of pattern.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW FULL MARKET REPORT 

I remember all too well the feeling in the marketplace in April of 2020, and the best way to describe it was “doom and gloom”.  People were worried sick that real estate as we knew it was over, finished, kaput!!!!!!  Never to return to the glory days we enjoyed since 2018, and for all intents and purposes, since 2006. That feeling was all over the media, all buyers, all sellers, and yes, all real estate agents. That’s why the number of transactions dropped from a high of 16,000 the previous year, to 2,000. That’s an 800% drop.  Let me repeat that. An 800% drop year over year. And it was all based on one factor: FEAR.

Regardless of the world-wide pandemic, and all the rumors abound, and the fear that media and governments portrayed, three months later we were back to record breaking levels and unprecedented prices.

Here’s my point, when you are in the middle of a storm, it’s human nature to focus on the storm and not the calm seas ahead, and when the storm subsides, we’re always surprised. Well, this is your fair warning, the storm of last year is subsiding and the real estate market is primed to move, and move fast. It has already started. Prices have already climbed to last fall’s peak, inflation rates are dropping, interest rates are soon to follow.

All great investors make decisions in a storm when the masses are too afraid to. Great opportunities are revealed once the dust settles, but by that time, the opportunity has lost its sheen. I successfully predicted the fall of 2017 and 2022, and I successfully predicted the rise of 2018. It is my prediction that there is so much pent-up demand from buyers who were sitting on the sidelines for the past 14 months, that in a few short months from now, values will again reach unprecedented levels. Buy now, sell later!!!

If you are planning on buying or selling real estate in the next few months, feel free to consult with us first as there are very specific strategies we can employ in this market to leverage it in your favour.

Ken Wilder BA, ABR, CH