Clearview Township Real Estate Sales Lagging

  The Municipality of Grey Highlands continues to enjoy strong sales over 2011 and leads our local municipalities with the largest unit sales gain year-over-year.  Through the end of October, Grey Highlands has seen an increase of 63% relative to the number of properties sold unit through the MLS® system of the Georgian Triangle Association of REALTORS® (GTAR).

 
For the first 10 months of 2012, sales in Grey Highlands total 109 properties, up from 67 sales in 2011.  Wasaga Beach takes second spot with an 18% increase in sales followed closely by the Blue Mounatins with a year-to-date increase of just under 18%.  MLS® unit sales in Collingwood are up 16% for the year while Meaford shows a 9% gain.  Clearview is the only area municipality where sales in 2012 are lagging behind last year, with MLS® sales down 10% from one year ago.  Coincidentally Clearview is where some of the more controversial issues affecting our area are centred namely, the expansion of the quarry west of Duntroon and the wind turbine project slated for west of Stayner.  These two issues are no doubt playing on some buyer's minds when considering the purchase of area property.

While recent months have seen somewhat of an upturn in higher end home sales, we are still well off the pace of last year.  Through the end of October there have been 4 sales reported through our local MLS® system over $1.5 million whereas last year there were 7.  Recently surveying the MLS® system I noticed there were 89 properties listed over $1 million, so based on the current level of sales activity this represents over 42 months worth of inventory. The $500,000 to $700,000 price range has been very active in 2012 with sales totaling 106 units, an increase of 26% from the 84 properties sold in this price range last year.     

  As we approach the upcoming holiday season it will be interesting to see what direction the real estate market will take.  November of 2011 was a very busy month which saw sales increase 22% over November of 2010 while December of last year was a typical month to close off the year with slower sales activity leading into the holidays.  Given the erratic ups and downs of recent months sales activity could go either way. Stay tuned.....