Last year will go into the books as the best of times and the worst of times as far as real estate sales were concerned.
Stuart McNeely is the Past President of the Orillia and District Real Estate Board and says 2010 started out like gangbusters with people rushing to purchase a home before the HST came into effect on July 1st.
He says as a result of that initial rush into the housing market, the summer was unusually slow, but then the market picked up again in September and the year ended on a very positive note.
McNeely says in 2010 there was about 271 million dollars worth of real estate transactions in the area covered by the Orillia and District Real Estate Board which was a 12 per cent increase from 2009.
He says the average sale price of a house last year was about 263 thousand dollars which is up about 5.2 per cent from 2009.
As for this year, McNeely says because of the fact Orillia is about one hour from Toronto and more jobs are being created in this region see a lot of people selling their city homes and moving to this region to purchase a home.
He says because of the upbeat feeling amont the public about the improvement in the economy, he sees another 4 or 5 per cent increase in sales for this year.
McNeely says the sale of high prices water front property is helping boost local real estate values.
