By Michael McCann
The fall Birchcliff housing market continued to favour sellers.
With a shortage of listings, buyers looking to secure a home before Christmas were faced with what has become the new normal – a multiple offer scenario.
Just recently I listed a small two bedroom bungalow and our strategy was to hold back on reviewing any offers for five days.
The reasoning behind this was twofold:
- To capitalize on a greater number of showings
- To establish a specific date and time for offer presentations and create the potential for multiple offers
Seven offers were considered
On the night my sellers were considering offers we had seven buyers who had put together an agreement to purchase.
Having reviewed all the offers we accepted one that was more than $115,000 over asking price. This sets the benchmark of now being the highest price ever for a bungalow on this particular Birchcliff Street.
The point I want to make is this what most buyers are facing time and time again in today’s competitive housing market.
So out of the seven buyers, looking to purchase this home, six had to go home and accept the frustration and disappointment in not getting the deal.
I would suspect that most of the buyers had been shut out numerous times before.
In time, I believe that buyers will say “enough is enough” and will sit it out when faced with another multiple offer situation. The phrase I’ve coined for this is “Buyer Burnout”.
Let’s have a look at our Birchcliff housing market for October and November:
Birchcliff – Cliffside Home Sales in October 2014 – 20 homes sold
Source: Toronto Real Estate Board. Excludes commercial properties, condos and vacant land.
Birchcliff/Cliffside
- October 2013 we had 32 homes sold while October of this year 20 homes changed hands – a whopping 37.5 decrease
- October of 2013 the average sold price was $536,461 while October 2014 the average sold price came in at $727,350 – an increase of 36%
- October 2013 it took on average 18 days to sell a home and in October 2014 it took 16 days.
Toronto Real Estate Board
- 7,941 sales in October 2013 with October 2014 showing 8,552 sales– Up by 7.7%
- $539,286 average selling price October 2013 with October 2014 coming in at $587,505 – Up by 8.9%
- October 2013 it took an average of 27 days to sell a home where October of this year 25 days
Birchcliff – Cliffside Home Sales in November 2014 – 25 homes sold
Source: Toronto Real Estate Board. Excludes commercial properties, condos and vacant land.
Birchcliff/Cliffside
- November 2013 we had 30 homes sold while November of this year 25 homes changed hands – a 16.7 decrease in homes sold
- November of 2013 the average sold price was $640,860 while November 2014 the average sold price came in at $618,850 – a drop of 3.4%
- 2013 it took on average 23 days to sell a home and in November 2014 it took 21 days.
Toronto Real Estate Board
- 6,354 sales in November 2014 with 2014 showing 6,519 sales – Up by 2.6%
- $538,347 average selling price November 2013 with November 2014 coming in at $577,936 – Up by 7.4%
- November 2013 it took an average of 29 days to sell a home where October of this year 27 days
In December most buyers and sellers are focusing on the upcoming holidays and not real estate. But once we move into the 2015 it will be interesting to see if continues as it left off or takes a new direction.
Just a quick heads up. In January I will be building a graph which will outline the 5 year month-to-month selling history of Birchcliff.
It will be a great snapshot of how our neighbourhood has fared over the years.
According to the Toronto Real Estate Board, our local housing market is defined as Birch Cliff/Cliffside and the boundaries can be seen below.
View Birch Cliff / Cliffside in a larger map
