Hamilton home sales drop in January: Realtors

Home sales are always expected to dip in the winter, but Hamilton home sales last month dipped lower than average for aJanuary. Last month, 685residential properties sold compared to 742 a year earlier, the Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington said late Thursday.

That was a drop of 7.7 per cent.

The median price for the detached homes that sold in January was $381,250, up6.2 per cent from the$359,000 median price in January 2014.

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For condos and townhouses, the median price for the ones sold in January was $265,000, nearly the same as the$266,250 median price a year earlier.

Ross Godsoe, CEO of the realtors association, said it's "too early to tell for sure" whether the lower listings and sales portend a slowing of the boom in Hamilton's housing market.

Still, homescontinued to sell more quickly than they did a year ago. Residential properties sold in January spent an average of 47 days on the market, compared to 55 days on the market in January 2014.

Meanwhile a new forecast Friday from the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation predicts Hamilton housing starts in 2015 and 2016 will look much like 2014.

Hamilton saw2,832 housing starts in 2014. CMHC predicted housing starts will total 2,900 in 2015 and 2,700 in 2016.

Renters won't get much relief from the tightening market, according to the forecast.CMHCpredicts Hamilton's rental vacancy rate will remain tight at 2.4 per cent in 2015 and 2.2 per cent in 2016. The vacancy rate in 2014 was a 12-year low of 2.2 per cent.

In their national outlook,CMHC economists acknowledged economic clouds on the horizon with declining oil prices and widened its range for forecasted prices and sales in the forecast.