Last year, during the four week period from July 14 and August 10, it was a seller’s market for townhomes in and around Victoria. During that time, 60 townhomes came on the market and 77 sold, averaging 39 days on the market to sell.
This year during the same period, market activity for townhomes was a bit less active than last, with 66 listings and 60 sales selling on average in 34 days.
The ‘days on market’ figures seems to send mixed signals – one would have expected a higher sales velocity last year than this. Well, just as the case with condo sales, once you take away the market activity around new constructions, the picture changes. During the 2005 report period, the average days on market for previously owned townhomes was 29 days, up this year only slightly to 32.
And again like condos, the average days on market for new townhomes for last year’s report period was much higher than this year (100 and 53, respectively). Are new townhomes really selling faster this year than last, as these stats seem to suggest? Or are increasing construction costs causing developers to rethink the wisdom of bringing their projects to market as far in advance of completion as they did last year?
I’m betting it’s the latter. To me, an indicator of that is last year, the ‘average original’ price for new townhome construction was lower than the ‘average list price’. What does that mean?
The ‘original’ price is the price at which a property comes onto the market initially – that is, the original listing price. But that price often changes during the time a property is on the market. Last year, during the course of the average new townhome listing, the average asking price actually increased, whereas during the recent four week period, it was just the opposite.
What about average prices? They were up significantly across the board for townhomes, going from just over $321,000 in 2005 to just under $375,000 this year. Extract new construction and the increase was even more dramatic, going from about $313,000 then to around $372,000 for the most recent period. But prices topped out in the 2005 report period at $685,000, whereas this year’s report period had two sales at prices higher than that, one of which was well past the $1 million mark! But even eliminating those two higher priced sales, the average selling price was still well up – to about $351,000, or approximately 12%.
Once again, this report represents just a snapshot of activity during two brief periods. Another thing to remember is the marketing activity here is based solely on properties placed on the Multiple Listing System.
Next Friday we’ll take a look at activity around lots and acerages.
Bye for now,
...Victoria's blogging real estate professional.
