The president of the Sarnia-Lambton Real Estate Board is eagerly awaiting the construction of new residential high rises to be complete.
In an interview with Sarnia News Today, Rob Longo said it's been tough trying to entice people to put their homes on the market.
"If there's not a lot of homes for sale, you're less likely to go out and find something that you want, which in turn, means you're less likely to put your house up for sale, and it just keeps making that process worse and worse, it kind of goes in a cycle," said Longo.
He said the real solution locally is more housing supply.
"The big thing that can create more housing supply is unlocking a lot of new build land. Not just single family, but multi-residential and proposed apartment buildings. Obviously, we've got the apartment buildings going up downtown right now, there's the new development on the Bayside Mall site and the developments along London Road. These mid to high rise buildings will help us out a lot in creating new housing units for people."
Longo said once the new builds start housing people, the local market should see more movement.
"(From) both ends of the spectrum, where we have young people starting out that are looking for an apartment style unit, and we have those older people that are looking to downsize into an apartment or a condo. So, it works really well to free up a lot of potential single family homes or different style units for other people as those people move out of their homes and into an apartment."
There were only 167 new listings in October, representing a nearly 24 per cent decline in sales activity compared to the same month in 2020.
"Inventory continues to get tighter in terms of what's available, but I think we are seeing a bit of a stabilization in sale prices, so, I think things are still holding strong," Longo said.
The median sale price for the month was $410,000.
Longo said homes, on average, sold after only nine days on the market and for 107 per cent of their asking price.
There were 153 local sales in October with a dollar volume of $74 million.