This couple is leaving Hamilton after cashing in on the hot housing market. Are other longtime residents doing the same?

For Peter Westhouse, home has always been Hamilton.

He was born at St. Joe's, went to Hill Park Secondary School, graduated from Mohawk College, worked for a trucking company based near the port authority and lived with his parents on the Mountain until he got married. When he had kids, he raised them in a home near Lime Ridge Mall, just steps from where he grew up.

Been here all my life," he said. It's the only home I've ever known."

But last Thursday, the 55-year-old and his wife, Roberta Seethaler, left Hamilton in favour of Shining Tree, a northeastern Ontario community more than six hours away that's so remote it has no official population listed.

There, on a big lot off Route 560, they'll run a hunting, fishing and wilderness resort year-round, a dream they decided to pursue during the pandemic.

COVID made it easier to kind of seize the moment," said Westhouse. You never know what's going to happen, so you better make the best of the time you have left."

But the main reason for leaving Hamilton? They wanted to cash in on a red-hot sellers' market.

Two years ago, Westhouse said his three-bedroom detached home on Titmouse Court - next to several shops and schools and parks - would've sold for around $500,000. Last month, it sold for $751,000.

We put it up on a Thursday for $700,000. By Sunday night we had a pre-emptive offer for $751,000. We accepted it right away," he said.

The prices up here have skyrocketed to such a point where it just made sense to cash in on the equity and live out our dream."

Indeed, by all metrics, selling a home in Hamilton has never been better.

Residential and detached property prices have been at record-highs for months. In October 2021, the average residential property sold for $864,464, up 27 per cent from the same month a year prior, according to the Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington (RAHB). That's in addition to a 20 per cent hike from October 2019 to 2020.

2020 busted all the records," said Donna Bacher, president of RAHB, pointing specifically to sale prices.

Does that mean we're bound to see an exodus of longtime Hamiltonians, worried the sale price might never be as good, cash in on their homes and move elsewhere?

Not necessarily, said Blair Gillis, broker manager for Royal LePage with more than 30 years experience.

Sure, Gillis admitted, home prices in the Steel City have seldom been this high; and sure, he added, some people have packed up and left. But it's important to consider the demographic of sellers and what is causing prices to jump.

You hear a lot of stories of people moving to the Maritimes or up north, but those are people who are more empty nesters or retired - they're tending to do that because they don't need to be close to work," said Gillis.

The other variable is a simple case of economics: less supply, more demand, higher prices. But that doesn't always translate to an increase in sales, Gillis noted.

New home listings in Hamilton haven't eclipsed the 1,000 mark in four consecutive months, marking an average year-to-year decline of 26 per cent. Sales, accordingly, dropped 25 per cent over that same period. But average prices still jumped an average of 23 per cent, creating what Gillis called a pinch in the market for both buyers and sellers.

There's still a huge shortage of listings, so sellers are holding their cards close to their chest and waiting to see how things go next year. And, to be perfectly honest, I don't see a slowdown in the prices for the near future," said Gillis.

Sellers also need to lock something up before they sell their home, and they can't find a property that suits their needs because there's a shortage of them. It's a Catch-22."

Gillis reiterated that some sellers, like Westhouse, have taken advantage of the red-hot market.

But the majority of locals are waiting for the time being because prices, however high they may presently be, show no signs of dropping, he said.

If it was a mass exodus, we'd see twice as many listings as we do now. But the supply is so low that people aren't jumping all over it and taking advantage of the prices."

Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com