Sarnia Lambton Real Estate Board office of Exmouth Street. (BlackburnNews photo)Sarnia Lambton Real Estate Board office of Exmouth Street. (BlackburnNews photo)
Sarnia

Pent-up pandemic demand fuels real estate rebound

The pandemic-depressed Sarnia-Lambton real estate market rebounded in June.

Sales hit an all-time monthly high of $80 million, $15 million more than June of last year.

The previous record for monthly sales was $71 million, set in May 2019.

Real Estate Board President Donna Mathewson said volumes were down in March, April and May as agents only processed essential sales due to COVID-19 restrictions.

"In June, people felt more comfortable both listing their houses, and having buyers go out to view houses and purchase houses," said Mathewson. "So, what we've seen is basically a pent-up demand that released in June. Hence the numbers of us reaching over $80 million."

Mathewson said even though sales were record-setting in June, year-to-date they're still down 13 per cent.

"We're still in a high demand, low supply situation, we've been in that for over four years now and we don't see that changing in the short term. Nobody has a crystal ball to know what will happen. If we do have another bout of COVID, but for right now we feel that our market is going to stay strong, just as it was in early spring."

Mathewson said the average sale price was $408,317 in June.

"We had 24 listings that sold over $600,000. We don't normally have that many sales in one single month that are over that amount, so because it's just a mathematical equation, it's an average, it really did push that average sale price up this month."

The average sale price year-to-date is nearly $372,000, up 12 per cent.

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