Home price average drops 10.6% to under $1M in Mississauga

Home prices continue to drop in Mississauga as new listings reached the lowest level ever for the month of December.

The Mississauga Real Estate Board report for December 2022 is out and it shows a continued cooling of the market.

Homes sales traditionally slow during December but this past month Mississauga “significantly underperformed,” said Nelson Goulart, president of the Mississauga Real Estate Board.

“Home sales totals in the month of December hit the lowest level since April 2020.” Goulart said. “In fact, the last time this number of properties changed hands in any December was in the mid-1990s.”

Only 280 homes were sold through the MLS System of the Mississauga Real Estate Board. This was a sharp decrease of 48.1 per cent from December 2021.

For all of 2022, 6,903 units were sold – down 39.1 per cent from the same period in 2021.

“Sales in our local market have fallen nearly 50% year over year and are currently hovering only slightly above the all-time single month low,” Goulart added.

For those looking to buy last month, there weren’t many choices in Mississauga. The number of new listings fell 26 per cent from December 2021. There were 335 new residential listings in December 2022.

This was the lowest number of new listings added for the month of December and was also the lowest number added for any month in history, according to the report.

Real estate listings are staying on the market longer. Active residential listings numbered 727 units on the market at the end of December, more than double the levels from a year earlier, increasing 226 per cent from the end of December 2021.

And while home prices are dropping, they are still out of reach for many buyers.

The average price of homes sold in December 2022 was $977,016, declining 10.6 per cent from December 2021, according to the report. But the more comprehensive annual average price was $1,118,391, a gain of 10.1 per cent from all of 2021.

And the benchmark price, usually considered more accurate, for single-family homes was $1,275,800, a reduction of 15.6 per cent on a year-over-year basis in December.

By comparison, the benchmark price for townhouse/row units was $782,600, falling by five per cent compared to a year earlier.

But apartment units or condos have actually increased a bit. The December benchmark for apartments was $642,300, a modest gain of 1.8 per cent from year ago levels.

The overall composite benchmark price of all home types was $1,030,100 in December 2022, down 12.3 per cent compared to December 2021.

Experts aren’t sure how much further home prices will drop.

“At this point in time, it is very difficult to forecast how low sales may go considering another interest rate increase is looming right around the corner,” said Goulart. “It seems we continue to be in a holding pattern until buyers and sellers are comfortable with the new realities of our market, our industry, and the economy in general.”