House prices in Greater Sudbury continue to rise

 Real estate in Greater Sudbury remain well above average for the city, although realtors say houses are still more affordable compared to other major cities.

The Sudbury Real Estate Board says the average price of homes sold in January 2022 was a record $458,144 which increased by 29.7 per cent from January 2021. Officials say overall, that number remains much lower than the national average which is $750,000.

Tanya VandenBerg, the chair of the Sudbury Real Estate Board, said although the list to sale price has increased during the pandemic, it can depend on the real estate agent.

“Some agents are still pricing their properties a little lower, but they’re getting a higher list price to sale price ratio. Then other agents are starting to price their properties higher and higher and then they’re narrowing that gap between the list price and sale price,” said VandenBerg.

“Before the pandemic, we were probably between that $50,000 and $60,000 over asking level on average, and now we’re closer to the $100,000 and sometimes even $150,000.”

VandenBerg said lately there has not been enough supply to meet the demand.

She said she does not see that changing anytime soon unless new developments begin in the spring, which would put more product on the market. 

“If we look back at the beginning of the pandemic we had about two months of inventory, that went down to about one month throughout 2021, and we actually ended the year 2021 with the lowest recorded months of inventory of 0.7 months,” said VandenBerg.

“Now that’s gone up a little but in January, that’s always hopeful, but certainly we’re not seeing the demand slow down whatsoever. So, I think we’re going to continue seeing this imbalance in the market.”

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, it said active residential listings totalled 191 units on the market at the end of January, which was down 36.3 per cent from the end of January 2021.

It said the number of active listings have not been this low in the month of January in the past three decades.