Issue 533 | The Market Isn't Moving. People Are.

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The Market Isn't Moving. People Are.

Two of the more interesting real estate conversations I've had recently have almost nothing to do with this fall market. Both are with clients who expect changes in their lives during the second half of 2027, and neither is planning to put a For Sale sign on the lawn anytime soon.

Instead, we're beginning to talk now about what their eventual move might look like, what needs to happen between now and then, and how the real estate decision fits into the larger plans...

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There has been no shortage of unsettling economic and political news again this week. Trade uncertainty, markets trying to interpret what comes next, and another steady stream of headlines are giving buyers and sellers plenty of reasons to wonder whether it might be better to simply wait.

Interestingly, so far our local real estate market appears to have largely shrugged its shoulders.

Homes are still being bought and sold. People are downsizing, separating, relocating, settling estates, changing jobs, having children and dealing with all of those...

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For long stretches over the past decade, a strong real estate market and rapidly improving technology did a remarkable amount of the work for us.

Homes went onto MLS®, appeared almost immediately on Realtor.ca and other websites, buyers received automated alerts, social media expanded the audience and open houses gave people another opportunity to walk through the front door. In a market with strong demand and generally rising prices, that combination often produced a buyer.

It also made it very easy to confuse exposure with strategy. Today’s market...

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Market Snapshot | The Numbers Are Still Soft, but Something Is Changing

If you looked only at the headlines around the real estate market right now, it would be easy to conclude that not much is happening. Prices across Wellington County continue to move lower, days on market have crept up again, and inventory continues to put pressure on sellers.

The numbers are still soft, and I don’t want to suggest otherwise. What has caught my attention, however, is that the pace of the decline appears to be slowing. Transaction volume was down approximately...

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Paul’s Observation | A Busier Market Is Not Necessarily a Better Market

Over the past several weeks, our team has been speaking with sellers who are hesitant to list during the summer. The conversation usually sounds something like, “Why don’t we wait until the fall when there are more buyers in the market?”

The logic makes sense. Fall often brings renewed buyer activity as holidays end and people get back into their routines. It can also bring another wave of listings from sellers who decided to sit out the summer.

That means the important...

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Paul’s Observation | The Right Property Has Its Own Market

A recent article from Stonefield Capital argues that the buyers who succeed in distressed market cycles are rarely the people who predict the precise bottom. They are the people who have prepared before the right property becomes available.

Stonefield Capital is an Ontario private mortgage lender, so the article should be read from one lender’s perspective, not as an independent prediction of where housing prices are headed. Still, its central argument is worth considering.

The overall...

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Every July, someone asks me whether they should wait until September.

Sellers assume the serious buyers have gone to the cottage. Buyers assume nothing worthwhile will come to market until the fall. Both may be partly true in certain weeks, but neither is a reliable way to make a real estate decision.

Summer changes the pace of the market. It does not stop it. People still get married, separate, have babies, graduate, change jobs, inherit property and make decisions they cannot conveniently postpone until after Labour Day. These are part of what I...

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Paul's Observation | The Market Isn't Stuck. It's Waiting.

The Bank of Canada announced this week that it is holding its overnight lending rate unchanged. After several reductions over the past year, we're now in a period where borrowing costs have stabilized. Normally, stable interest rates would be expected to encourage more buyers to re-enter the market. That's simply not what we're seeing, at least not in the resale market.

Many buyers remain comfortable waiting. Some believe prices may soften further. Others expect more inventory to arrive...

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Paul's Observation

The current market reminds me, in some ways, of the decade between roughly 1992 and 2002. The economic circumstances are different, but the behaviour and mood of the market feel familiar. The national price-index charts from that period show a long stretch of restrained growth, frequent annual declines and very little of the sustained upward momentum that became common in later years.
 

Living and working through that market felt even slower than the chart now makes it appear. There seemed to be limited motivation for anyone to...

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Last week I had the privilege of taking my father, who turns 85 later this year, back to Newfoundland to spend time in the community where he grew up. It was a week about family, history and understanding where our roots began.

There was something special about watching Dad revisit places that had shaped his childhood and hearing stories that only seem to emerge when you're standing where they happened. We'd stop at a church, an old relative’s home, a harbour or a quiet stretch of road, and another memory would surface. Some places had changed...