Ep 16: May 2025 Guelph real estate sales update

In this episode, Ryan gives an update on Guelph real estate sales for the period of May 1- 31, 2025.

Click here for the Guelph real estate blog version of this

Click here for the Guelph real estate Youtube channel of this

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

Transcript

Guelph real estate report podcast Ep #16: Sales for the period of May 2025

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 16 of the Guelph Real Estate Report podcast. My name is Ryan Waller, and I work with my wife, Beth in the Guelph real estate market. This podcast is the audio version of our market updates for the month. You can also see a written version on our blog and a video version on our YouTube channel. If you listen to episode number 15, we talked about how there was suddenly some life to the Guelph real estate market in May. Prior to that, from January to April, we were trending every single month, slightly below last year, as buyers were hesitant to get into the market. Sellers were hesitant to sell at market prices. In fact, leading into the May long weekend, the Guelph real estate market was on track and trend to be very similar to Prior May's. And it looked like the Spring market was arriving just a little bit late. But the May long weekend arrived Victoria Day, and it took the wind out of the sails of the market, and we went from being in line versus prior May's to finishing the month at about -8% in transactions. It means that May is following the trend that we've seen in February, March and April. In that we are simply having less transactions and trending almost double digits below the prior year. In fact, if you take a look at the transactions from January 1st to May 31st, we are about 11% lower than last year. And that is just last year when sales were already starting to trend downwards. We're 20% even greater down than the last few years. One of the interesting things about the real estate market is that we get asked all the time, how is the market? And we say that the market is down and there is less activity, and people automatically assume that's a negative and it is a negative. If you're trying to sell a certain type of property in this moment, but you have to look at it in totality. In the real estate market, someone is always going to be happy with the market and someone is always going to be disappointed with the market. In a market where transactions are slower. Buyers love that. Buyers are finally, for the first time in years, getting the upper hand on the real estate market. If you are a buyer right now and are looking at a condo, let me tell you there are some deals to be had. I was out showing condos on the weekend to parents who were looking to buy something for their student to attend the University of Guelph, and this is a pretty common request that we get to help parents buy something that their child can live in while at university, and the child, um, rents the rooms out to their friends, and the parents consider it to be an investment instead of paying rent for their kid at the University of Guelph. We went to, I would say half a dozen condos and there were all vacant. No one living there. It was either an investor who has moved on. It was either someone who had lived there and bought another house and moved on. And in all of these cases, the person is holding a condo, paying taxes, paying condo fees, and generating zero income and almost on a daily basis. This number is increasing. The number of condos available is increasing. So you can bet that although the sellers in this situation are not happy with the way the market is going, that buyers are loving this, they can play the condos against each other. They can take their sweet time to weigh out the pros and cons of each development. What are the fees? What are the taxes? What are the amenities? What's going to be the best for my child? How close is it? All of these sorts of things? Buyers have forever to think about it. And you know that when a listing realtor is calling you, within five minutes of you leaving the property to see what you think, that there is definitely some desperation setting in with condo sellers. Now, like any market, there are segments that are moving slower and there are segments that are moving faster, in fact, even within a product segment. So for example, within condos, still some of those are selling quicker than others. If you are in, uh, South Guelph and selling, let's say, on, uh, Goodwin or selling, um, something down a Gordon Street, you are probably looking at a number of competitive listings because there are quite a few, and we've had buyers buy in these buildings and have been able to negotiate a great deal on a place. A couple on K Crescent, actually, a bunch of them on K Crescent this year because they've had choice and because sellers want to sell. But if you are selling a detached home and in particular under 900,000 and around the downtown, they are going fairly quickly because there's limited supply of those. And if you are selling one of those, you are less upset with the way the market is going. And lastly, when you're looking at real estate numbers and like I started off this podcast with talking about how the volumes died and inventory and sales have been down 8% for the month of May and double digits for the year so far. That doesn't mean that prices have come down in every segment of every house. In fact, I am actually surprised that the prices of homes have been somewhat solid throughout the year. Yes, we are declining slightly, and yes, some segments are declining faster than others, but in totality, we're really not seeing these fire sales that people are anticipating are going to happen. Because remember in a real estate transaction. And part of the reason we were selling less houses is that the seller has to agree. We often talk to buyers about this where they say, well, this home is only worth X amount of money. And to that buyer maybe it is, but to that seller, maybe it isn't. And this is where we've come to a stalemate with transactions where despite the fact that a house may be worth X value, a seller doesn't have to accept that. And. They would rather, as I've shown over this past weekend, they would rather not sell it than in some cases accept the market value for them. They're weighing on the fact that perhaps and this is a big perhaps down the road, the market will increase again and they will eventually get their price. From my perspective, I don't see that happening anytime soon. I'm not making any promises to anyone that's selling a house at the market is going to get better for them, but some sellers can financially weigh that gain if they're paying $200 a month in taxes and $500 a month in condo fees. That works out to be about if my math is right, about $8,400 a year in fees. And from a seller's perspective, they're better off absorbing that $8,400 in fees than selling at a $30,000 less than what they want to sell it for now. It's a gamble. Will it work for them? It's tough to say. As always, if you have any questions on the Guelph real estate market, you can find us on our website at Beth and Ryan. You can book an appointment, you can give us a call, or you can send us an email. Talk to you soon.