Masks off! Uncovering the rise in real estate values in Oshawa

By Lindsay Smith/Columnist

I am going to start this column off with a headline from May: “CMHC sees house prices in Canada falling between 9 per cent and 18 per cent over the next 12 months.”

Let’s look at another quote responding to real estate brokers disagreeing with this forecast. “Please question the motivation of anyone who wants you to believe prices will go up.”

I have mentioned before how inaccurate my crystal ball is so let’s dig into what is happening with prices in Oshawa.

We (if you remember pre-COVID-19 there was a real estate price boom) had a run up in prices in Ontario that ended in the spring of 2017. In Oshawa, the average detached home peaked in April 2017 at $668,000. The trigger that seemed to stall the market was a foreign buyer tax that sent a shock wave through the real estate marketplace. By the end of June 2017, the average detached home dropped in price to $508,000. Since then, we have seen a slow steady increase, and as we began 2020, we had a jump-up in values reminiscent of the boom of 2017. Then, in March, COVID-19 shuttered our market and it came to a standstill. Prices dropped and the doomsayers were predicting a collapse. Here is what happened – a turnaround that has surprised even the most positive pundits.

Average Detached Home Oshawa:
December 2019 – $600,709
January 2020 – $609,773
February 2020 – $625,618
March 2020 – $618,106
April 2020 – $567,134
May 2020 – $591,514
June 2020 – $629,826

This is an increase of about 5 per cent in six months! Even if my crystal ball was polished, I could not have seen this coming.

When I discuss market trends with my clients, I find the best way to allow them to capture what is trending is to keep things simple. In Oshawa, up to $650,000, there is less than one month of inventory available. What I mean by this is if nothing else was placed on the market for sale in Oshawa at below $650,000, it would take less than a month to sell all the available homes. In fact, it would take just over two weeks to sell everything for sale. In Oshawa over the past week, of all homes sold, 69% per cent sold for full asking price or for more than asking. This is what is called an “overheated” seller’s market.

This is the reality across most of Durham Region. In 2017, it took a tax law to upend the market. In 2020, a pandmeic cannot even slow things down.

One thing that will cause the market to fall back into more of a balanced one is when the number of available homes increases. This will allow the buyers more selection and more opportunity to negotiate. At the end of June 2020, we had 200 detached homes for sale. By the of end 2019, there were 461 homes available. This is one of the reasons for the multiple bids on homes causing the prices to sell over asking.

If you are planning on making a move, a seller’s market is a good opportunity to capture the best price and terms. If you are looking to buy, be certain the sales representative you are working with has a proven track record and negotiating skills that have been honed in volatile markets like the one today. A good quote to remember is, “When a person with experience meets a person with money, many times the person with the experience ends up with the money and the person with money ends up with the experience.” Experience in today’s market is critical.

If you need help understanding how the numbers may affect your area, or if you see a real estate emergency on the horizon, I can be reached at lindsay@buyselllove.ca.

Lindsay Smith Broker
Keller Williams Energy Brokerage