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The following charts will give you a quick glimpse into the Muskoka real estate market, but don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like more details, or check-out the newly improved Interactive Graphing feature on our website, now with median pricing and unit sales by price range, click here.
Overall unit sales for Muskoka has increased +11.26% (figure 1). Included in that number are: Single Family, Cottage, Condo, Vacant Land, Fractional, Mobile and Other (figure 2). The highest percentage increase in unit sales of those types was condo sales, with a significant rise of over 40%. District of Muskoka anticipates the largest growth segment to be the retiring demographic, therefore these numbers are following their prediction. “The greatest housing impact is anticipated to occur over the short to medium term (ie next 5-15 years), as the first wave of the “baby boom” population approaches retirement age to 75 years old.” Vacant land had negative growth of -25.85%. This number will no doubt effect new housing starts for Muskoka in 2015.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Muskoka has realized a significant increase in cottage and single family sales over 2013. Cottage sales have reached an all-time high with 665 units in 2014 (figure 3), while Single Family has increased to pre-recession numbers and increasing 11.51% in 2014 (figure 4). I anticipate continued growth through 2015 as long as the economy remains stable and interest rates low.
Figure 3
Figure 4
The biggest gains realized were on the Huntsville Lakes where sales increased +34.48%, followed by Lake Muskoka, largest lake in Muskoka at +29.03% (figure 5). Overall this news is very positive for the health of the Muskoka real estate market. Check out the end of this article to see what type of market we are currently experiencing: Buyer’s Market, Balanced Market, or Seller’s Market.
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
With increased volume comes more demand and increasing prices. The chart below shows that the average price for a cottage in Muskoka increased +9.17%.
Below I’ve broken down the average prices into specific larger lakes (figure 8) and overall for smaller lakes (figure 10). Rosseau Lake had an increase of a whopping 29.25% (figure 8), this is due to the sales of almost double the amount of cottages over $2,000,000 for 2014, (2013, 12 sales – 2014, 22 sales). The other two Muskoka Lakes – Lake Muskoka and Joseph combined had 31 sales over $2,000,000. Lake Joseph has been known as the lake with the highest values and if we look at the median price, (figure 9) this is still the case. Lake Joseph has a higher median price at $1,837,500 as opposed to Rosseau at $1,677,500. Average and median are both measures of central tendency, but the average can be skewed by very large or very small data. Median tends to be a more accurate representation of value because the median is not affected as much by those very large or very small sales data.
Figure 8
Figure 9
On the smaller lakes the average price increased +4.78% from $415,118 (2013) to $434,939 (2014) (figure 10). Still decent growth but keeping cottaging affordable.
Figure 10
Below, figure 11 & 12, are breakdowns of the cottage and residential markets for Muskoka, by price range. If you are a seller and know the approximate value of your cottage or home, this will help you determine how many buyers you will be appealing to. It’s very important to price accurately because on average only 39% of properties sell and there are limited number of buyers.
Figure 11
Figure 12
If you require further statistics on condos or any other property types, please email john@abenteam.com, call my cell anytime at 705-788-4770 or click here to view the interactive graphs on our website.