Every month I read the board numbers before I write a word, and September told a clear story. This is the most buyer-friendly market Windsor-Essex has seen in ten years. More homes to choose from than almost any September on record. Prices sitting below last year. Homes taking longer to sell, and sellers accepting just under asking on average for the first time in years.
So why are the buyers in my office moving faster, not slower? Rates. Or more precisely, the expiry date printed on their pre-approvals. Here is the full picture.
September by the numbers.
| Measure | September 2026 | A year ago |
|---|---|---|
| Benchmark home price (MLS® HPI composite) | $570,000 | down 2.4% |
| Average sale price | $544,184 | down 4.6% |
| Months of inventory | 5.3 | 4.9 |
| Median days on market | 24 | 20 |
| Average sale price vs. list price | 99.5% | 102.1% |
| Busiest price range | $450K to $550K | about 1 in 4 sales |
| Most sold style of home | Bungalow | avg $457,490 |
Source: Windsor-Essex County Association of REALTORS® and the Canadian Real Estate Association, September 2026.
What those numbers actually mean.
At 5.3 months of inventory, Windsor-Essex is sitting in territory we have not seen since 2016. For most of the last decade that figure lived between one and three months, which is why buyers spent years losing bidding wars. Today a typical home takes 24 days to find its buyer and closes at 99.5 percent of its asking price. Negotiation is back on the table.
Before anyone panics about prices: the benchmark home sits at $570,000, about 2.4 percent below last September and roughly 3 percent below where it sat three years ago. That is a drift, not a drop. What has changed is leverage. Buyers finally have selection and time, and sellers who price sharply are still selling. The ones priced for 2022 are the ones sitting.
And the local economy is quietly giving this market a floor. Windsor Assembly added a third shift in September, putting more than 1,700 newly hired workers on the line and plant employment near 6,000, and the region’s unemployment rate has fallen to 7.5 percent from double digits a year ago. Thousands of new paycheques tend to find their way into housing.
The deadline nobody talks about.
Here is what is actually moving the market right now, and it is not on any September chart.
When a lender pre-approves you, they lock your rate, typically for 90 to 120 days. A buyer who got pre-approved in early July locked in around 4.29 percent, which matched the best rates in the country at the time. Those holds run out over the next few weeks.
The market they expire into is moving the wrong way. The best insured 5-year fixed rates dipped through late summer and have snapped back up roughly a quarter point in the past month as bond yields climb. The big banks are now advertising 5-year fixed rates between 4.6 and 5 percent. And the Bank of Canada meets next on October 28: markets put roughly one-in-three odds on a hike that day and are pricing the policy rate a quarter point higher by December, with two of the big six banks forecasting an October increase. Economists argue about the timing. Almost nobody is arguing the direction. The next move is up.
Here is what it costs a buyer who lets a 4.29 percent hold expire and ends up at a bank-advertised rate of 4.89 percent, on an average-priced Windsor-Essex home at $544,184 with 20 percent down and a 25-year amortization:
At 4.29%
$2,359/mo
At 4.89%
$2,505/mo
Cost of waiting
$8,751
over a 5-year term
That is $146 more every month, about $1,750 a year, for the same house. This is why the buyers I am working with right now are not waiting for spring. They are using the rate they already locked, in the softest market in a decade, before the lock runs out. Both halves of that sentence matter.