Home sales cool in North Bay after a red hot spring and summer

Spring and summer of 2022 was a good time to put your home up for sale in North Bay. Houses often sold just days after being put on the market for well more than the asking price.

But numbers released by the North Bay Real Estate Board this week showed the local market cooled, following trends across the province and Canada.

"For the market to sustain the way it was going earlier this year, just wasn't possible, so sales volume is down, the average sales price from May," said Ryan Humble, president of the North Bay Real Estate Board.

Humble said it's not all bad news: prices are still higher than they were a year ago.

"Our average sale price to end last year was $395,000,” he said.

“We got upwards of about $565,000 when we peaked, and at the end of October, we're down to about $400,000. But year-to-date, we're about 465,000.”

According to the Real Estate Board in North Bay, the number of homes sold through the MLS® System of the North Bay and Area REALTORS® Association totaled 87 units in October 2022, down 23 per cent from October 2021.

Home sales were 22.7 per cent below the five-year average and 16.6 per cent below the 10-year average for the month of October.

On a year-to-date basis, home sales totaled 1,053 units in the first 10 months of the year, a decline of 23.1 per cent from the same period in 2021.

Overall, Humble told CTV News, the market is still healthy.

"Right now it's lower inventory, so you have less competition when selling your house,” he said.

“If you're comparing your house to what your neighbour did six months ago, yes you're not going to be getting what they did. But at the same time, you're still going to be up from last year at this time."