The year 2020 left almost every industry reeling from unprecedented change in response to the pandemic. Real estate was especially impacted as buyer demand for more green space and a desire to relocate to regions outside of the GTA, including cottage country, skyrocketed.
“The market was quite feverish throughout the areas of Parry Sound, Muskoka, Haliburton and Orillia,” says Chuck Murney, president of The Lakelands Association of Realtors® Board of Directors. “Across all regions, the number of sales rose an average of 21 percent. We saw a 42 percent increase in waterfront property sales, and the average sale price jumped 27 percent.”
The association represents over 800 realtors® in these four regions – all offer the wide-open spaces, larger properties and access to nature that people were seeking, in most cases only a couple of hours away from the GTA.
In Parry Sound, the number of waterfront sales increased by approximately 35 percent between 2019 and 2020. The number of non-waterfront sales has risen by approximately 14 percent.
Prices have risen as well, as even the most casual observer has likely noticed, with waterfront and non-waterfront properties going up by approximately 24 percent and 18 percent, respectively.
Looking ahead to the coming year Murney predicts that the relocation trend will continue. “The investment in cottage country properties will continue to push the market higher throughout 2021, affected by a desire to escape urban centres coupled with a severe lack of properties for sale.”
Murney isn’t certain that last year’s surge in sales, driven by cottagers cashing in on rising property values, will continue. “It is hard to say whether we will have the same bump in available properties which could make 2021 an even tighter market than 2020.”