Ep 33: Feb 2026 Guelph real estate update | Sales Hit Multi-Year Lows, Prices Down 9%

n this February 2026 market update, Guelph Realtor Ryan Waller breaks down exactly what’s happening in the Guelph real estate market — including sales velocity, average home prices, inventory levels, and what it all means for buyers and sellers heading into the spring market 

Ep31 mid Feb copy 

February marked the slowest sales pace in years, with just 3.8 homes selling per day — lower than any February in the past six years. Average home prices in Guelph declined year-over-year, and total unit sales and dollar volume are both down compared to early 2025. But is this simply winter seasonality… or the start of broader price pressure?

In this episode, we cover:

• 📉 Why Guelph home sales this year are at multi-year lows 
• 💰 February 2026 average home prices (detached vs. condos)
• 🏘️ Condo market update — is a recovery starting?
• 🔥 Detached homes under $800K selling over asking
• 📊 Months of inventory (MOI) and what a 4.7 MOI means
• 🏡 The $1M+ segment and shifting luxury trends
• 📈 What to expect in the March 2026 spring market

Ryan also explains how buyer selectivity, mortgage renewals, economic headlines, and inventory quality are shaping current market conditions — and why pricing strategy matters more than ever in a balanced market.

If you're buying, selling, investing, or just watching the Guelph housing market, this episode provides clear, data-driven insight without the hype.

Subscribe for bi-weekly Guelph real estate updates and market predictions!

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

Transcript

Ep 33 Summary

In February 2026, the Guelph real estate market was slow, with a lower sales velocity and average price. Inventory was also down compared to previous months, and buyers seemed to be waiting for better options. In the condo segment, there was a slight increase in sales and the average price, potentially indicating a recovering market. In the detached segment, sales were strong and homes sold at a higher percentage of asking price. Sellers in the downtown core may be waiting to list their homes. The real estate market in Guelph, Canada was strong in February, with 14 detached homes selling over asking price in the $600,000 to $800,000 range. There were also a good number of sales in the million-dollar plus range, though it has been weakening in recent months. The overall market is balanced, with 4.7 months of inventory. However, there has been a decline in unit sales and dollar volume compared to last year. The decline in prices has

 Transcription

 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 and welcome back to the Guelph Real Estate Report podcast. This is episode number 33. My name is Ryan Waller and I work in Guelph Real Estate with my wife Beth, and together we are one of the top volume teams in the city of Guelph and within Keller Williams Canada. We are not a big team. There is just the two of us. When you call us, you work directly with us, not another team member, and our goal is to ensure that our clients are informed on the Guelph real estate market so they can make informed decisions as well. If you are buying or selling a house in the Guelph real estate market and you need some help, you can always find us on our website at Bethany Syrianska. Okay, let's get into why you are here. You are interested in the golf real estate market for the month of February. And what a coincidence. That's what we're talking about today. Okay, the month is over. We are now into the beginning of the spring market, and let's hope that the spring market is a little more active than we've seen so far in 2026. So let's start with the headline number. For those of you who listen to our podcasts or watch our videos or read our articles, you'll know that I love to look at sales velocity or how many homes sell on a day to day basis in golf and overall throughout the year. On average, there are about five houses per day that sell on the golf real estate market. There are obviously more that sell in the spring market, and there are less that sell in the what we call shoulder seasons of, um, January to February and November and December. So if we look at February specifically over the past six years, we've seen the number range from 4.3 as the as the low to 8.8. And that was in the peak of the market in 2021 and two. This year. We finished February at 3.8 home sales per day. And just as a reminder, the low was last year at 4.3. So we are having the slowest velocity or sell through month then we've had in the past six years. And that's on top of a January. That was the slowest January in many years, and also one of the slowest months in general in a number of years. So we're off to a sluggish start in the golf real estate market for sure in both January and February. But why is that happening? And lately I've had a lot more people ask this question and then give me their thoughts, which is that they believe it's the weather. It's been cold, it's been long, it's been snowy and icy, and it doesn't make for great conditions to either go out and look at houses or get your house ready to list. It's hard to get over the idea that you're listing your house when there's no green grass. There are no flowers, and especially if you have a pool and it's not open yet. And some of the most productive months in the Guelph real estate market are actually at the end of February and early March, before the spring rush comes. Statistically, you don't get much less at all, if anything, by listing a little bit earlier, but the house certainly does look better in the spring, that's for sure. So weather is probably a factor. I don't think it's the only factor. I think U.S. news headlines are certainly a major factor. I think the Canadian economy, especially in southwestern Ontario, is a major factor as well. And a lot of people are up for mortgage renewals this year and may decide they just don't want to make the move at the moment. So there's a lot of different reasons why we think that we're sluggish, but I think the main one, from my perspective, is obviously that buyers and sellers are not coming together to complete a transaction, right, because you need both sides. I don't believe that buyers are seeing the inventory that they want to buy, which we'll get into in a second. And I don't believe in some cases that sellers are accepting of the current market conditions. And I think those two things together are creating a bit of a tug of war on the local real estate market. Let's take a look at prices. If you take a look at the overall average of housing in Guelph in February 2026, that's if you add all of the styles of homes together. So condos, townhouses, detached, semi-detached, if you add it all together. The overall average price in Guelph in February was 717,000. That's made up of the condo and townhouse segment at 542,000, and the detached home segment at 808. They average out to 717. But here's the part that stands out is that the overall average price this year, this February, is 9% lower than it was one year ago. In fact, it's the lowest average price since 2020. But before you panic, remember that average prices are simply a mix of inventory. So if a lot of cheap homes sold in a month, the average price would come down. If a lot of expensive homes sold in a month, the average price would go up. It moves with the mix of inventory. It doesn't mean that if the average price is down 9%, that every home in Guelph declined 9%. It's not that. In fact, we'll get into some of the things that actually are moving quicker than others in a little bit. But. It is softer than last year. There's no doubt about that. Okay. Let's get into inventory. So this is the number of available homes. Inventory was rising in December. It was at 437 units or homes for sale December 1st. Then there were cancellations. Listings came off the market and we expected those would come back. Well, here we are March 1st. This is December 1st versus March 1st. There were 437 on December 1st and March 1st there are 416 or 21 less homes, about 5% less than December the 1st. So as we anticipated, there was going to be an inventory rise into 2026, which we've started to see from the beginning of January to now, we're up about 10%, but compared to December of last year, we're still down about 5%. There hasn't been a big inventory rise in golf real estate. So it tells me something pretty specific. Buyers are looking. They've seen what's available and they're waiting. They're not desperate. They're being selective. And until the white House hits the market, they are inactive. That's important to know. If we take a look at what specifically sold in February, there were 105 sales, of which 36 were condos and townhouses, and the remaining 69 were detached homes. So let's break that down a little bit further in the condo segment of the 36 condo style houses out there. The low price was 312,000. In the Onward Willow neighborhood, it was a condo. The highest price was 835,000. That was a condo downtown. And the average, as I mentioned earlier, was 542,000. That average price is interesting because it's actually a bit of a bump up than we've seen in the past few months. And last year, we saw prices range on average between 600,000 at the peak and about 500,000 at the low for a little bit. So we're getting close to the midpoint again. Something else notable in this segment is that for months, condos were selling at about less than one per day. You could bank on if there were 30 days in a month, there were about 28 sales, but in February it was 1.3 per day. There were 36 sales in 28 days. It's an improvement. And the average price, as I mentioned, ticked up. So is this a trend? We'll watch it I don't know. Is it just a moment in time? It's too early to say, but we'll keep an eye on it for sure because it is a change in what we've been reporting on in condos. And it may be just the point where they have come cheap enough. Or perhaps sellers have realized I have to bring my price down. And if I want to sell this place, one of the factors we use, of course, is vacancy. It's how many units that are on the market are actually for sale and vacant. The owner owns it but hasn't rented it out or has moved out or something, and it's ticked down a little bit as well. So now we're at 40% are vacant. It seems like a lot. Yes for sure, but it was higher. It was as high as 44% at one point. It's down to 40 now. We still think there's opportunity here. If you are a first time buyer and you're looking to get into the market, into a condo or a townhouse, it may be worth starting to look at this segment. I do think depending on the property, that some of them will continue to get cheaper, but I think some of them are now becoming compelling enough for people to start to jump in either if you are an investor or looking for something for your kid at university, or just your first home or to downsize. Condos offer a lot. So I think that maybe we're starting to see a bit of a bit of a recovery. I wouldn't say a full recovery for sure, but it's maybe a little bit in terms of negotiations. 88% of them sold, of the sales sold under the asking price, and five and a half sold over the asking price. It's there is definitely some negotiating going on. There's no doubt about it how low you can go. Well, that depends on the individual situation. But if you need somebody to help you, guide you, just even give you some advice. Feel free to get in touch. Moving over to the detached segment. There were 69 sales as mentioned. The lowest was 345,000. This was a vacant lot that was in the ward. This sale was actually recorded twice, um, because it was listed as both vacant land and a single family home because it's on a single family lot. So we took out, deleted the extra sale because it wasn't a true sale. Uh, the highest price was 1.4 million in old university, bringing out the average of 808,000 homes here sold at 98.4% of asking. And this is slightly stronger than condos, which were at 96. And it's also slightly higher than we've been seeing in the past, which makes me believe that this segment is starting to curl up a little bit. And we know this because we have clients looking in the detached segment and have been frustrated with the options. It seems as though many sellers, especially around the downtown core for some reason, have yet to put their houses on the market. And when they do, depending on the price point, there are a number of buyers. There were 16. Detached houses in February that sold over the asking price, which you'd say that's crazy in this type of market, but it goes to show that there is demand, and 14 of those 16 were under the average price of 808,000. So it is a detached home that is under the average, so under 800,000 and probably over 600,000. So if you're sitting on a detached home wondering when the good time to sell is between 6 and 800,000 as a list price, well, now is the time because there is not as much inventory on the market, and buyers are certainly looking based on the numbers that we see in February. The other segment we look at is the million dollar plus segment. And for years in golf, almost what's all certainty between 15 and 20% would sell over $1 million. And we've been watching it closely because there's been a bit of weakness there. I think as prices come down in general, what used to be a million is 950. Um, and there's a bit of weakness. So we watch it every single month. Uh, October we had 17%, over a million. November was seven, December was 13, January was 16, and February rolled in at 10.5. Our take on that is that the historic 15 to 20% range may be shifting. We may be moving out of that, and it may be 10 to 15% sell over $1 million, and we'll keep an eye on that. But it's an interesting thing to see. That segment is certainly not leading the market right now. It is not the one that is driving the volume, that's for sure. So what type of market are we in? We are sitting in a balanced market. There are currently 418 homes on the market, and the average of the last three months sales are 88 per month. You do the math on that, and it works out to be 4.7 months of inventory, which puts us right in the middle of a balanced market under two months of inventory. We'd say seller's market 2 to 6 balanced six plus buyer's market. What I think is going to happen is that the average sales over the trailing three months is going to remain low. We've got December was low, January was low, February was low. March is going to tick up but so is inventory. So my thought is that based on current trends, I expect we're going to move into the 5 to 6 month inventory in the next 6 to 8 weeks. We're at 4.7. We're getting pretty darn close. And we've been saying this for a little while. I think it's coming. And if we move into a buyer's market, like I think we are going to. It means rising inventory, slower sales pace, it's price pressure, and there is going to be a bit of shock, I think. Um, I don't know everything, but I know some things about the real estate market here in Guelph, and I suspect we're in for a bit of price pressure. Does it mean crash? Well, if real estate is surprisingly resilient, but I do think that sellers are going to have to get a little sharper on their prices coming into the next few months. So now that we have February numbers in, we have full months for January and February. And where do we sit year to date? Well, we look at three measures unit sales. So how many physical houses sold dollar volume. If you add up all the sale prices of the homes how does it compare and average price? How does it compare to the same period last year. So on unit sales we are down 16% versus the same period last year. This is 35 absolute homes. On dollar volume. We are at 131 million this year versus 169 million last year. That's down 23%. And the average price this year is 727,000. Versus last year at 786,000. Or a decline of 7.5%. So what does that tell us? Well, it tells us something interesting is that despite the fact that unit sales are down and dollar volume is down, the average price is not nearly down as much. It's an interesting thing, and we noticed that throughout the whole 2025 is that despite the fact that we were down significantly in sales, unit sales and dollar volume, the average price held strong. So yes, prices are declining. And yes, it's not ideal for a seller, but yes, it is ideal for a buyer. What we'll be watching for in March is sales volume to rise. I anticipate that when we get into March, we're going to see. Greater sales velocity than we saw last year. Last year, we sold four and a half homes per day, or 140 in total. Will we exceed it? I suspect we will weather it's going to get warmer. I think that there are a lot more people coming out to the market than we've seen. I think January and February were slower volume months to begin with, but I think we are going to outpace it for our full year. We have anticipated that the overall number of houses that sells in 2026 will be greater by 3 to 5% than 2025. However, we do believe that overall average prices will decline 1 to 3%. So we do believe we're going to see a bit of a change that's coming in some of the big volume months, that of course, the big volume months drive a lot of the numbers. So we'll see what March brings. But we anticipate greater volume is coming. So on that note, the market is balanced negotiable, selective very segment specific buyers have options. Sellers need to have a strategy. And pricing correctly matters more than ever. Inventory quality, not just quantity, is going to determine how the spring unfolds. So if you want updates like this as we move into the spring, you can obviously subscribe to this podcast. You can find us on our YouTube channel, which will be linked as well. And the main source for our information is always on our blog, updated biweekly at best and LionsXII. Talk to you next time.