The Sarnia-Lambton Real Estate Board is closely watching the impact of the new coronavirus outbreak on interest rates.
President Donna Mathewson said the Bank of Canada lowered its interest rate by half a per cent, and some banks lowered their rates last week in anticipation of the move.
"The incentive is to try and stabilize the economy and to try and have more growth," said Mathewson. "They want to do something that makes people feel better about spending money and about investing, so a lower interest rate spurs that on."
Mathewson said homebuyers are realizing unbelievably low rates, between 2.6 and 2.8 per cent on five-year mortgages.
"In an age where we really thought, two or three years ago, we were going to see interest rates start to climb slowly, because Canada was doing well economically, we thought we would see those rates start to creep up and we would maybe be looking at 3.5 to 4 per cent rates by now."
February's dollar volume of nearly $44 million is almost 24 per cent better than the same month last year.
127 properties sold -- up 15 per cent -- compared to last February.
The average sale price so far this year is $352,000.
