London in September: Sales Edged Up, Prices Slipped, and Homes Took Longer to Sell

What the September report shows

More homes sold in London and St. Thomas in September than a year ago, yet the typical price was lower and the typical home sat longer. Those facts sit together comfortably once you read the whole table.

The London and St. Thomas Association of REALTORS (LSTAR) publishes a monthly Residential Market Activity report, prepared for it by the Canadian Real Estate Association. For September 2026 it shows 561 sales, up 5.3% from September 2025 and 1.4% below September 2024. Dollar volume was $343,056,771, up 3.3% on the year.

• New listings: 1,615, down 5.1% year over year.
• Active listings: 3,335, up 3.1% year over year.
• Sales-to-new-listings ratio: 34.7, against 31.3 a year earlier.
• Months of inventory: 5.9, against 6.1 a year earlier.
• Average price: $611,509, down 1.9% year over year. Median: $560,000, down 4.3%.
• Sale-to-list-price ratio: 96.9, against 97.0 a year earlier.
• Median days on market: 34, against 29.

How the pieces fit together

Sales rose a little while new listings fell a little, which is why the sales-to-new-listings ratio improved from 31.3 to 34.7. CREA's usual guide treats a reading of roughly 45 to 65 as balanced, so 34.7 still sits on the buyer-favouring side of that band. In our look at London's August release, the board reported 6.3 months of supply and a ratio of 37.5%. September's 5.9 months suggests the pile of unsold homes shrank a little, though from a very high base.

Compared with the long run, the table is blunt. Active listings are about 398% above September 2021, when months of inventory was 0.7. Today it is 5.9. Anyone who bought or sold in the 2021 spring market is looking at a different world.

Time on market and the gap to list price

The sale-to-list-price ratio of 96.9 means that, averaged across every home that sold in September, buyers paid about 3.1% below the asking price. On a hypothetical $600,000 listing, that is about $18,600. The figure is a market-wide average, it blends homes that sold above ask with homes that sold well below, and it says nothing certain about the next home you look at.

The more useful reading is about time. A median of 34 days, against 29 a year ago and 22 in September 2024, means offers are not being decided overnight. For a buyer, that tends to make conditions in an offer, such as financing or a home inspection, easier to negotiate than in a faster market. For a seller, it means pricing against recent comparable sales matters more than it did, because an overpriced listing simply sits.

Year to date, 5,256 homes have sold, down 3.6% from the same point in 2025, at an average of $619,705 (down 3.9%). September's modest rise in sales did not reverse the year's direction.

What this means if you are financing a purchase

A slower market gives you time, but time is only useful if your financing is ready. Three things are worth sorting out before an offer.

• A real pre-approval. One built on your documents, not a quick estimate. See what a pre-approval actually is.
• Cash to close. Closing costs are separate from the down payment. Our closing-cost guide lists what to budget for.
• A second look at the appraisal. If prices are slipping, a lender's valuation can come in below the agreed price. This explainer covers that gap.

We arrange mortgages across Ontario, and London and southwestern Ontario are named markets for us, even though we are not based there. Lending is provincial, not local, so the same lenders, products and process apply; our London and Middlesex page explains how that works in practice.

The board’s figures are kept month by month on Market Pulse, alongside the Bank of Canada, inflation and jobs picture.