Mallory Pink was putting her kids to bed, when she heard a surprised gasp coming from her husband.
He was reacting to the multiple offers they received on their home, just hours after it went up for sale.
“We didn't have any idea that it was going to go the way that it did,” Chris Pink says.
The Pinks got 10 offers on their home, selling it for $86,000 over the asking price in just 28 hours.
“We just said get it done. Sign the papers before they change their minds,” Mallory said while laughing.
Barrie once had a reputation as a place to find an affordable home, but now there are unheard of bidding wars and a shortage of listings.
“Where in the past, maybe if you priced your home pretty aggressively, you'd get two or three competing offers, and now often times, it's a situation where you might get 10 or more.,” says Colin Behan, sales representative for Century 21.
In January, 66 per cent of homes sold in Barrie went for more than the asking price. A year earlier, it was only 23 per cent.
“In the past it was, 'Oh, I'm willing to buy your home', and the seller was very grateful and happy, and now it's the opposite where it's like, 'OK, get in line.'”
Now, most offers don't have conditions and buyers don't even do a house inspection.
“When we bought this house seven years ago, it has been on the market for over a week, and we were the only offer,” Mallory says.
So what's good for sellers like the Pinks is also posing a whole new challenge for buyers.
“The economy is doing really well in Barrie. There's a lot of demand for property, but the big problem we've got in Barrie is there's just not enough supply and that's really driving prices through the roof,” says Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman.
The Ontario Real Estate Association says the solution is more supply; in other words, building more houses. The challenge is figuring out where to do that and making sure the price isn't out of reach.
