The REAL Market Report: January 2026

There’s a certain feeling you get when one year ends and another one begins. I don’t know why but it really feels like a reset and that you are turning a page to something new.

Maybe it’s a subconscious thing but I think most people give a lot of meaning to the start of a new year.

It’s not like a birthday, especially as you get older. I’m sure everyone remembers their parents or friends asking “so do you feel older?” on that special day when they were younger, to which most people probably responded “no”. Had anything really changed? Nope.

Even most couples that get married these days, does that marriage certificate change the way you are living your life? Most people already live together by the time they get married and their day to day lives change very little after they tie the proverbial knot!

Personally, I stopped putting so much weight and importance into New Year’s Eve a few years ago. I try not to give too much meaning to what is just 1 of 365 days of the year. It’s just another day!

Despite all of that, I have to admit that our real estate market feels different since the beginning of 2026.

Quite often, the feeling of the market doesn’t necessarily line up with the cold hard stats, as we will explore in this report, but the feeling is alive out there!

Open houses are packed every weekend, showings are increasing, well priced and presented homes are selling faster than they were last year (sometimes in multiple offers), and every agent that I talk to seems to be considerably busier than they were in the last few months of 2025.

So let’s get into the data and take a look where we stand, one month into 2026.

Let’s start with average sale price in London at $591,330. That number is down 6.2% from last year and down about 1.2% from the month before. That number is very much within the “band” of pricing we have been living in since 2023.

Somehow, the MLS HPI Benchmark price took a small uptick from December (up 0.9%) but is down year over year by 8.6%.

On to what is becoming my least favourite stat: new listings. Why is it my least favourite? Well, I’m just feeling that it doesn’t bring as much to the conversation as it used to because so many homes are listed multiple times when they don’t sell. It’s just inflating the number of new listings that we see in the monthly stats.

740 new listings last month was actually less than January 2025. However, it is still 28% higher than the 10 year average.

Active listings, which is a result of new listings, is a way better indicator of the market right now. Last year, we saw record levels of available homes for buyers and I have said that I wouldn’t be surprised if those levels were surpassed in 2026.

We ended last month with 1437 available listings, 17.7% higher than the year previous. Like I predicted, a lot of the inventory that fell off the market in December was picked back up in January.

I think our market is trending toward 2500+ active listings in the spring.

Last, but certainly not least of the main stats, there were only 212 homes sold in London last month.

This is where the “feeling” of the market really starts to deviate from the cold hard facts because that is a low number. Only 63% of the 10 year average and the lowest number for January in at least the last 14 years.

Because of the low sales number, and the increasing number of active listings, we have 6.8 months of inventory. What does this mean?

Months of inventory: if no new homes were listed for sale, how long would it take to sell all available homes at current sales pace.

6.8 months is a ton. 4 months of inventory is considered a balanced market. Last year we had 4.8 months of inventory after January. I don’t usually pay much attention to this stat, but the result from last month was pretty shocking to see.

Another way to look at this: only about 15% of homes are selling, and it varies based on price point. If your home is priced north of $1M, it’s probably less than 10%.

In other price points, there are certainly more active buyers.

I have two takeaways from this:

1. As a seller, you better be positioned better than 90% of other homes in the market. Pricing and presentation have to be top of mind.

2. Buyers are fighting for the top 10% of homes in certain price points. The 1437 active listings can be broken down into “very desirable” and “not going to sell”. You should have a gut feeling where your home fits.

January flew by in my mind but I know a lot of people thought it took forever. We are almost half way through February now and 2026 is just chugging right along. It’s going to be warm outside before we know it, and as someone that just started skiing, I am alright with a few more months of snow! See you in March!

My friend Lucas and I at Boler Mountain. Yes, I have my phone out to work on the chair lift.