Is it over?
How do you know when a recession is over? If you're waiting for someone to announce it from the top of the highest hill you'll probably be getting the news about 6 months too late. Just like when we heard we were in a recession, we had been in one for about 6 months. Whether we're riding a death spiral into or climbing out of a recession you can bet that the official announcement will be delayed until the experts are absolutely sure.
According to a recent report from the Bank of Canada, the country's recovery from the recession will be shaped more like the steady curve of ‘a hockey stick' rather than bouncing back like a V. Regardless what shape the recovery takes the fact that people are now discussing an economic recovery rather than the recession is a good indication that the end of the market down-turn is near.
Although this short but mighty recession has claimed its share of victims, the Guelph real estate market showed relative resilience during the first quarter of 2009. Now this resilient market has staged what could be called a great 2nd quarter come-back. Total sales last month were actually higher than the previous June. That's the first time this has happened in almost a year. The average sale price increased 1.5% from May to June this year and 18.5% of MLS sales sold for full price or more. The result of this active market is that the inventory of homes for sale is down to 463, the lowest amount since January. Once again we have more buyers than sellers in Guelph and it won't take much of that before we welcome back the perpetual seller's market that we're used to.
Now I'm not standing on a hill announcing to one and all that the recession is finally over. But if we get 2 or 3 more months of this, I will be.
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