Economic uncertainty and bad winter weather combined to give buyers and sellers in the Orangeville real estate market time to pause in February and as expected we saw the numbers of new listings and sales decline both year over year and month over month.
February was a very slow month for sales the 18 sales in February were the lowest in the last 25 years, and this was down 47.06% from the 34 sales in February 2024. This is a reversal of a normal trend where sales increase from January (36) to February and build into the spring.
There was similar activity with the number of new listings, where the 44 new listings were down 25.42% from the 59 new listings in February 2024, and new listings declined from January (59) to February.
The Average Sales Price in February of $820,278 was an increase of 5.64% from February 2024 but was also a decline from the average sales price in January where the average spiked to $909,772. For the most part pricing in Orangeville has remained fairly stable over the last two years with some fluctuations.
An interesting trend is emerging in pricing, the average price for semi-detached homes and freehold townhomes has been slightly lower than last year (semis -2.61% and towns -3.87%) but detached homes have increased 11.44% in the first two months of 2025 when compared to 2024. Keep in mind this is a small sample size of sales, but this is a trend that I am continuing to monitor.
The number of active listings is building into the spring market with 92 homes listed for sale at the end of February an increase of 84.00% from the 50 active listings at the end of February 2024 and a slight increase from the 86 active listings at the end of January 2025.
With 92 active listings and 18 sales, this represents 5.1 months of inventory. With 18 sales and 44 new listings the Sales to New Listings Ratio is 40.91%. Both of these numbers indicate that the Orangeville real estate market is in a balanced position leaning slightly to the advantage of the buyers.
What does all this mean?
The reality is that uncertainty in the economy has been the biggest driving force in the real estate market. In February there was much speculation about the coming trade war between Canada and the US, in addition, there was a void of political leadership surrounding this issue with the resignation of the Prime Minister and the Ontario Provincial election being held at the end of the month. This uncertainty made many would-be home buyers and sellers take a pause to see if there was some clarity on these issues before making a buying or selling decision.
As we stand right now in March the trade war between Canada and the US is still evolving and, the Ford PC’s have been elected in Ontario and Mark Carney is Canada’s PM with the speculation that a federal election announcement is coming at some point in the near future.
Lower interest rates will help ease the burden of mortgage renewals for homeowners with low-rate mortages and will decrease the possibility of home sales based solely on mortgage affordability. However, I do not think that lower rates will create a huge demand for first-time buyers to enter the Orangeville real estate market given the current pricing of homes.
Looking ahead into the spring I expect to see higher numbers of new listings and sales mainly due to the seasonality of the Orangeville real estate market but I do expect the spring market to be the third consecutive slow spring with lower sales volumes compared to the 10-year average.
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