Average price dropped for the second month in a row, moving from $1,079,395 down to $1,051,216 as we discussed above. That’s a 2.6% decline, on the heels of a 0.9% decline from October to November. But as noted above, this was completely in line with expectations, as the average home price always drops from November to December. Year-over-year, that $1,051,216 average home price is a full 9.2% lower than the $1,157,837 recorded in December of 2021, and that’s significant. That’s a real decline, and while it’s an average based on a weaker market in the suburbs and a stronger market in the 416, it looks as though most properties in the 416 or even the central core are down from the same period last year, on paper, at least.
Sales declined to the lowest figure for any December since 2008, a mere 3,117. That’s down 31.4% from the 4,544 sales recorded one month prior in November, and it’s down an even larger 48.2%, on a year-over-year basis, from the 6,013 sales we saw in December of 2021. Having said that, the year-over-year decline in November was 49.4% and in October it was 49.1%, so we’re pretty much on par as far as the difference between 2021 and 2022 goes. All-in-all, it seems like sales in December were as we should have expected.
New listings plummeted last month, which is probably a good thing when you consider the decline in sales. We saw 8,880 new listings in November but only 4,074 in December; a decline of 54.1%. Oddly, the year-over-year data shows a smaller decline, as those 4,074 new listings were “only” 21.3% lower than the 5,177 recorded in December of 2021.
Active listings declined by 27.0% from November to December, after only declining 8.5% from October to November, but this makes sense, considering new listings declined more than sales. We saw 8,692 active listings at the end of December compared to 11,910 in December of 2021. But the one figure in this month’s report that’s going to cause you to ask for a recount, a double-check, or a source is this one: active listings were 169.0% higher in December of 2022 than December of 2021. 8,692 last month compared to a paltry 3,231 in December of 2022. Inventory continued to build, every month, through the fall, and it culminated with those 8,692 listings left over at the end of 2022.
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