Weekly Regional Business Intelligence | | | Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc. | | | Home sales tumble further in November According to the London and St. Thomas Association of Realtors (LSTAR), which released data for home sales in the month of November this week, a total of 492 homes exchanged hands in the region (the LSTAR catchment area also takes in Strathroy, St. Thomas and portions of Middlesex and Elgin counties), a 19.2 per cent decline compared to sales in November of 2024. On the supply side, a total of 994 new properties entered the market in November, a 3.8 per cent decline from the same period a year ago. Active listings (a total of all listing) for the month sat at 2,808, a 17.4 per cent hike from the same period a year prior. With listings still outpacing sales by a considerable margin, the sales-to-new-listing ratio (a metric measuring market balance by dividing the number of homes sold by the number of new homes listed in a given period, expressed as a percentage) sat at 49.5 per cent in November, compared to 59 per cent for the same period a year ago. “Based on the economic climate across the country and the uncertainty in the marketplace, many potential buyers remain on the sidelines,” said Dale Marsh, 2025 LSTAR chair. “This is evident by the 5.7 months of inventory [defined as the amount of time it would take for all current listings to sell if no new listings were to enter the market] in November, which is the highest inventory level recorded in the month over the past 10 years.” The upshot: The average selling price of a resale home in November came in at $604,994, just about where it was last month when it sat at $605,560. Prices have been in a bit of a freefall of late, with the average price dipping 7.5 per cent since August, so it will be interested to watch to see if the market has plateaued or if the winter doldrums will push it below the $600,000 mark. “Good, well-priced homes are selling, although for about the same prices as we were seeing just before the pandemic hit in 2021,” said A Team London partner Marcus Plowright in his year-end market review for London Inc. “The wild swings of the last five years have brought us back to where we started.” Read more: LSTAR | | | Planning committee backs urban growth expansion London’s planning and environment committee has endorsed a proposal to expand the city’s urban growth boundary by over 1,500 hectares, comprising mostly land earmarked for residential development with a small amount set aside for industrial use. On Tuesday, the committee voted 6-0 in favour of the expansion plan, which has received support from the city’s development community and city staff. It has, however, drawn criticism from the neighbouring Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, who have been vocally opposed to the idea, and are asking the city to consider a larger buffer zone and to engage in a formal consultation process on the expansion. “We understand that the mayor needs to do the planning with council, but we were given a December 2 deadline before the plan is submitted. It’s just too short,” said Chief Joe Miskokomon, speaking to the CBC News London. Council will hold a final vote on the expansion on December 16, before the proposal heads to Queen’s Park for approval. The upshot: Council will probably have the votes to approve the expansion, but there’s a good chance the whole thing may be headed for the courts, with the issue being whether the city has a legal duty to conduct formal consultations with the Chippewas of the Thames. Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis seemed to suggest that consultation had already been held, telling the committee that “Chippewas of the Thames First Nation has had the maps for the community growth and protected natural heritage features, not just to the west that they raised some issues about, but the full map since June.” However, the issue will be whether that meets standards required for formal Indigenous consultation processes under Canadian law. Councillor Sam Trosow, a non-voting member of the planning committee, suggested the city would need to seek a legal opinion on the matter, while Councillor Skylar Franke noted the city had endorsed a duty to consult in its Reconciliation Action Plan several years ago. So, while the vote is likely to pass, you can probably bet this story may have a few chapters to go. Read more: CTV News London | CBC News London | | | Uncertainty deepens at CAMI Opposition MPs and laid-off workers at the GM CAMI Assembly Plant in Ingersoll are wondering where things are heading for the auto plant, currently sitting idle more than a month after the 15-day deadline industry minister Melanie Joly gave the company to lay out its next steps. On Thursday, Unifor Local 88 officials posted that they had settled on terms related to early retirement packages with GM but were still working on negotiations around future plans for the plant. Mike van Boekel said in a video that all laid-off members will be receiving 26 weeks of pay, unless they are recalled in the next month, with a small number of skilled tradesworkers being retained for plant upkeep. As for what might happen with the plant, van Boekel said negotiations were set to continue this week, but no timelines or potential plans have yet surfaced. In the House of Commons, the issue has been a bit of a lightning rod, with opposition MPs from Southwestern Ontario saying that “workers cannot keep feeding themselves off of empty liberal promises.” For her part, Joly said the government “believe[s] that GM can act along with the government and with Unifor to bring back a new model,” although it remains unclear what that might be. “We think there’s a path towards a good news story,” she said. The upshot: Reading between the lines of union comments, it doesn’t seem like there is a great deal of hope for the plant to be revived any time soon, unfortunately. On Thursday, Joly announced the government had served Stellantis (which had halted production of the Jeep Compass in Brampton) with a notice of default, potentially signalling intent to step up their fight with the automakers — so it may be the case that more action is coming for CAMI. For its part, all GM has really said publicly so far is that “cooperation between GM, Unifor and the Canadian and Ontario governments is the best path toward our shared goal of a strong, competitive and sustainable Canadian auto sector,” and that they are engaged in “complex discussions” and intend to “invest the time necessary for collaboration that will deliver better outcomes.” Read more: CBC News London | | | Grand Theatre puts finances back in order A record-setting holiday production of The Sound of Music helped the Grand Theatre start to right its financial ship last season, with the theatre turning a $94,000 profit on $9.8 million in revenues for the 2024/25 season. It marked a substantial turnaround for the theatre, which had run deficits of $282,000 and $272,000 in the past two seasons, respectively. “We are very happy with the results of the 2024-25 season,” said executive director Lyndee Hansen. “I think people are excited by the programming, so people are coming back.” Season subscription packages hit a ten-year high, with over 6,000 sold, plus strong single-show tickets and the “resounding success of the 2025 Grand gala,” said board chair Matt Parr, who praised “a major turnaround financially that has put the company into a surplus position, a remarkable result that underscores the effectiveness of strong leadership, prudent management, and community support.” The upshot: New leadership, both administrative and artistic, seems to have helped the Grand here, with both Hansen and artistic director Rachel Peake having just completed their first full seasons in their roles. The season saw the theatre take some risks on smaller productions, like Heist and The Secret to Good Tea, backed up by crowd-pleases like The Sound of Music and a modernized take on Pride and Prejudice. Their past season, Peake said in a press release, was “centered around the idea of joy, highlighting theatre as a place for pleasure, and guaranteeing connections: with characters, with stories, with other theatregoers.” The city had previously denied a request from the Grand Theatre for $1 million in funding over four years, so it is encouraging to see the arts institution back on more solid footing. Read more: Grand Theatre | London Free Press | | | Odd Burger shutters production facility Vegan fast-food producer and restaurant chain Odd Burger Corporation has closed its production facility on Consortium Court, the company announced this week, axing 15 jobs as it shifts to an outsourced manufacturing model. “This is a better direction for us going forward,” founder James McInnes told The London Free Press. “Now we can buy the same products cheaper. [Competitors’] products cost less than ours. It does not make sense.” The company, which produced products under the Preposterous Foods banner, said it will now use products sourced from plant-based producers like Beyond Meat, LightLife and Field Roast, which McInnes calls “some of the best products out there.” He also said that they will continue to sell these products with Odd Burger branding at various retail stores. The shift comes on the heels of a $1.5 million investment default by Westmount Ventures a couple of months ago, and after the company canceled its U.S. expansion plans earlier in the year. The upshot: On one hand, Odd Burger is running into the same problems that companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have: sky-high production costs and declining demand for imitation meat products, so perhaps the pivot to being an asset-light operation makes some sense. On the other hand, Odd Burger’s main value proposition has long been the quality of its ingredient lineup, which it has now jettisoned. Odd Burger’s overall strategy since taking on outside investors has been somewhat chaotic, to say the least — they had talked up dozens of franchise agreements across North America (including, at one point, announcing plans to open 20 locations in Washington state alone), then later focusing on the CPG division under the Preposterous Foods brand. The company’s financial performance has never been all that stellar throughout this, though the company says it now plans to focus on its franchise expansion, with a new location about to open in Woodbridge. Read more: London Free Press | Newswire | | | Lionhearts opens London warehouse Lionhearts Inc., a food rescue agency founded in 2014 in Kingston that distributes unsold food and household goods from retailers and distributors to frontline agencies and charities, is opening its first dedicated warehouse space in London with the help of an anonymous donation of $250,000. “The 3,000-square-foot warehouse, which is not a public-facing facility, is expected to be operational later this month,” the organization said in a Facebook post. It added that the donation “will allow us to expand our food and household goods recovery operation in the London area and set the stage for further growth,” and said the donation will triple their capacity to distribute food and will cover their leasing costs for the next two years. “This was sort of the first step, getting warehouse space so we can get a little bit more established in the area, and also look longer term to build something that would be sustained well for the next 50 to 100 years,” CEO Travis Blackmore told The London Free Press. “We don’t want to be in the business temporarily.” The upshot: The added capacity for food rescue services couldn’t come at a better time, with food bank usage in the news after a report from Feed Ontario that found that over one million Ontarians relied on a food bank in one form or another over the last year. With that growth in demand, finding enough food has been a logistical challenge. “We’re not adding more food. What we’re seeing is more clients,” one food bank operator from Toronto told CBC this week. Lionhearts told the Free Press it will rescue over $1 million worth of food in London alone by the end of the year, a number it expects to double or triple next year. Read more: London Free Press | | | Dispatch: December 5, 2025 A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week. View listings here | | | | |