Ep 13: Guelph real estate weekly sales update April 1-25, 2025

April/ May/ June sales volumes historically make up 35-38% of total annual sales despite only representing 25% of the months. This means that it's more likely a transaction will happen during this time than any other period in the year.

However, for sales to happen, buyers and sellers needs to come together to agree on price/ conditions/ closing dates and more. This has been the challenge so far this year in Guelph real estate. Buyers are expecting more details, while sellers are reluctant to reduce their sale prices.

What are we likely to see in spring 2025 Guelph real estate?

You can always get touch with Beth and Ryan Waller on their website

Transcript

Welcome to the Guelph Real Estate Report podcast with your host and Guelph realtor, Ryan Waller. This podcast is designed to provide information for those buying and selling homes in the Guelph area to make the process more informative, fun, and a little less stressful. Now on with the show! 

Hey everyone, it's Ryan and welcome back to episode 13 of the Guelph Real Estate Report podcast. Sorry, there's been a bit of a delay in the weekly episodes. It would be indicative of the spring market and the busyness that has come about, and we will talk about that today. One of the things we talk about often in real estate is seasonality, and this is about how many transactions happen during the different seasons. And as you would imagine, you will find less activity in the colder snowier months and you will find more activity in the warmer months. So it's no surprise then, that the months of April, May and June, just after we get through a cold winter. The grass starts getting greener. The trees start getting leaves that people want to consider listing their home. And so the months of April, May and June, despite being 25% of the months, make up about 35 to 40% in some cases of the total annual sales. And now I should caution that more sales doesn't mean higher prices. 

More sales just means that sellers are active. They want to get their house on the market when it looks nice outside and the flowers are starting to bloom, and buyers are looking to make a move after the snow is gone. They're out of their house more often. The weather is nicer. They can envision themselves being in a new backyard, or potentially a house with a pool in the summertime. And so buyers become more active as well. It would also be no surprise, then, that some of the busiest closing times. So you buy a house and you have a closing date. Some of the busiest closing times are the end of June. And that's because that is the end of the school year, and particularly for someone from that is moving from out of town or even within Guelph and from neighborhood to a different neighborhood, they want to finish out the school year. So oftentimes we'll find that there are buyers in April and sometimes into May, sometimes even into June that want an end of June or early July closing. 

And it makes sense, right? 

You finish the school year, you're about to go on vacation, and you want to make that move happen right in the middle of those. Just as school is done. But before you go on vacation for the summertime. The second busiest time of the year, we find, is at the end of November and early December, just before Christmas. But if we take a look at sales month to date in Guelph, remember it's one of the three busiest months of the year. Sales this month are and I sound like a bit of a broken record, but they are down from last year significantly and we are under five houses per day on average selling and Guelph, which um, it is a very low metric. Um, we typically see some of the highest numbers, uh, per month happening in April. And so just for some context, uh, you know, last year alone, we were at 177 sales for the month 2023. We were at 180 sales for the month of April. And we're rolling in here, uh, this month in Guelph at about 120, which for in April is the slowest April in years. Uh, with the one exception being April of Covid, where it was the first full month where nobody was doing anything. Uh, besides that month, this is the second slowest April in a very long time. So transactions are happening. 

They are just not happening at the same velocity that they have been in prior years. If we look within the freehold segment or detached semi-detached without fees segment, we have 83 sales month to date, with the lowest sale price coming in at 490,000 on Fountain Street downtown, and the highest sale price at 2.25 million on Nevis Place. And there actually were two $2 million sales this month, but we had a total of about 15 sales that were above $1 million, which for, uh, as a percentage of 83 is significantly higher than it would in a normal month. Be. So interesting stats. Although the overall numbers are down, uh, some higher average price sales. And I'll talk a little bit about why I think that is in a minute. Um, if we get into the condo and townhouse segment, we are looking at 46 sales with the lowest being. 307,000 on Conroy. In fact, the, uh, the first three, the lowest price three of the month. Uh, there were three on Conroy, uh, that sold under 400,000. And if we look at the highest price, we have three above 1 million. Uh, the most expensive being a 12th floor unit, um, in the development at 1878 Gordon Street. So, um, interesting numbers there as well. Uh, surprising to see three units sell over $1 million in the condo segment this month. We are starting to notice that there are more move up buyers, uh, coming back to the market. And this would make sense. Um, these are buyers where they are in maybe their first home, and they are now looking to move up to the next phase. Their kids are getting bigger. They need more space. Maybe they want to move a little more rural or out of the city. And they are selling in the 7 to $900,000 range and buying whatever that next level is. So a million, 1,000,001, a million, two somewhere in that range. And we're starting to see that.