Sarnia-Lambton's hot real estate market cooled off a bit in July.
Real Estate Board President Rob Longo said there were only 136 active listings, a 10-year record low for the month.
"Through July we still would have liked to see more listings coming on the market," said Longo. "We actually saw a reduction over July of last year, even though coming out of the lockdown March and April last year, we still saw even less listings last month."
There were 177 sales locally, down 11.5 per cent from July 2020.
"A lot of people are, I think, coming out of their shells a little bit, from the different lockdowns we've had. Now in stage three, people can move around and they can go on vacation, go to restaurants and do different things. I think people are exploring that and are a little bit side tracked."
Sarnia-Lambton Real Estate Board President Rob Longo. (Photo from RobLongo.ca)
Longo said dollar volume, at nearly $89 million in July, was up nearly eight per cent because of increased home prices.
"We saw the median price, at $435,000, sitting about exactly the same in June and July. So we expect that to hold fairly steady. It might not see the same increases that we've seen over the last year, but I think it will start to level off and maybe plateau a little bit."
Longo thinks market pressure is easing a bit with homes selling closer to the asking price.
"The median days on the market so far this year has been eight days, in July it was nine days. The sale to list price ratio in July was about 104 per cent of asking price, down slightly from the month before at 108 per cent and earlier in the spring when we got up to 110/111 per cent."