Market Review: February 2022
February 2022 is in the books and the number of transactions and new listings is very typical for this time of year. If there is a surprise in this month’s market review, it is that more people have not taken advantage of rock-bottom inventory levels and listed their homes for sale.
To give our readers a better sense of just how unusual these inventory levels are, we’ve prepared the chart below, showing the number of active listings at month-end since June 2019.
As you can see, with the exception of springtime upticks, the overall trend in active listings on the market is down, down, down. Not super encouraging for anyone planning a house hunting trip in the near future.
When do we expect listing inventory to pick up? Given the easing of travel restrictions, it seems likely that a lot more folks will be leaving town for March break this year (the last two weeks of March), so we don’t expect a March peak in inventory, like we saw last year. But come early April we expect things to ramp up. Here is our monthly graph of new listings, just to give you a sense of how the spring and summer is likely to unfold.
One thing to note about February’s figures, the average sale price jump of 28% should not be relied on too heavily because it was skewed by the sale of a $1.1 million dollar home, which is the second highest MLS sale price we’ve ever see in Yellowknife (the highest was $1,123,000 in 2016). We won’t really have a good sense of where prices are trending until the end of March, at which point we’ll be able to review the full first quarter. The more transactions we are able to use to calculate the average, the less of an impact outliers like a $1.1 million sale will have. So stay tuned to this channel and we’ll try to give you a sense of where things are heading in 2022.
At Century 21 Prospect Realty, it is our goal to define and deliver the Gold Standard in real estate services. A big part of this is ensuring that our clients have all the information they need to make informed decisions. If you are thinking of selling or buying in 2022, please don’t hesitate to reach out to a member of our team.
