Video: Year-in-Review Market Update January 2020

January 14, 2020

Let’s recap how the real estate market fared in 2019, and how the pattern that we see in average home prices shows the trend that has led us into 2020. If you are buying and/or selling this year, pay special attention.

Watch this month’s video here: https://www.youtube.com/Miia_Kelly_January2020MarketUpdateVideo

Here is the script for those who prefer to read rather than to watch:

Hi, it’s Miia here with your January market update and Year-in-Review for 2019.

The slow holiday season is over and sellers are beginning to prepare their homes for the Spring market and buyers are starting to keep a close eye out for new listings.

Let’s take a moment to review what happened in 2019.

When we compare each month of 2019 to the same month of 2018, we can see how much the Average Home Price changed year-over-year. As you can see, home prices started out in 2019 with increases in the low single-digit-percentages, but as the year went by, the prices began to increase faster. By December of 2019, the average home price had increased by 11.9% compared to December 2018.

To put this into perspective, throughout the entire year of 2019, the average home price went up by a total of 4%. The gains in price were low in the beginning of the year and sped up as we went through the year and ended in a double-digit increase in December.

The average home price in the GTA at the end of December was $837,788.

Throughout 2019, the Bank of Canada kept its policy interest rate steady at 1.75% which kept mortgage interest rates fairly steady throughout the year as well.

So what does all this mean for homeowners and buyers and sellers?

If you are a homeowner and you’ve owned your home for longer than a year, then, based on the averages, your home probably increased in value by a conservative amount in 2019.

If you are planning to buy or sell this year, then these recent patterns may be important to you. Seeing that the price increases have been getting stronger over recent months is interesting. Will this continue, or will the strong increases be unsustainable and ease off?

It would be overly speculative for me to indicate how long this will last. I WOULD suggest that if you are buying or selling this year, work with a Realtor who will keep a close eye on the market for you, watch for any sudden changes and advise you regularly along the way.

That’s my update for this month. If you have any questions, let me know.

Bye for now.

Miia