Toronto’s Real Estate Market Slows In June… Continuing To Do So In July
As far as I’m concerned it had to happen sometime. The foolishness of ‘manufactured’ multiple offers in Toronto had gone on for far too long and was hurting home buyers, not benefiting house or condo sellers and was wasting a lot of everyone’s time and energy.
Motivated sellers will still get their homes sold and motivated buyers now have more choice in what they would like to buy.
I don’t know how long this blip in the Toronto real estate market is going to last. In the past few years, the summer market has been as strong as the rest of the year. In the 1980’s and 1990’s July and August sales were always down – people going on vacation, hot weather etc - so we might just have reverted to that old traditional marketplace.
So… watch the video, get caught up on the latest Toronto Real Estate Board stats and get a feel for what you should be doing in today’s less stressful real estate market.
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Comments
Tomas, thanks for this.
As for the current multiple offers – it is more than foolishness. This is a situation that has been know for years – see http://www.movesmartly.com/2007/09/no-wonder-consu.html and http://www.thestar.com/living/article/265613 but it has not been brought to mainstream acceptance.
And it is happening in every real estate closing now in the GTA.
On a house that has sat for months and months, after price reductions on MLS, then sat some more time – as soon as an offer is made, then phantom “multiple offers” all of a sudden appear.
This has happened to 3 buyers who I know in the past 2 weeks. And the buyer agents are playing right along, pressuring to close quickly, to “…be reasonable”, than “…another one like this won’t come along ever”.
On Wednesday night my friend made an offer through his buyer-agent realtor, asking was 440, offered 400. This house was listed in March for 460, then price was lowered to 440 in late June.
His buyer agent rebuked him for offering so low. Buyer agent told the client to “be reasonable” and it would be insulting for her, as a professional, to take such a low offer to the seller’s agent. He relented, and made the first offer for 410.
Seller came back Thursday with counter offer of 434, and this time said he had another buyer with a competing bid. My friend’s buyer agent jumped on that, urging him to be more reasonable, trying to drum up the excitement and the worry. My friend instructed his realtor to offer his firm final offer of 420. The buyer agent tut-tutted it, but put it through, shaking her head (I was with him for this). The seller came back with 432 with a response deadline of 8pm (it was around 7pm at the time).
At this point, my friend told his realtor that he was walking away. The realtor became frantic, spoke incessantly about the “multiple offers” and about how he was giving up his dream. I just watched all of this but said nothing. She urged me to say something to convince him – I just said no. I watched as she begged him to offer 425 – just 5 more!. He said no. She said “…ok ok ok….just offer them 421. What’s an extra measly $1000???!!! You’re going to give up your dream over $1000???”.
About 20 minutes after that, his agent called to say the seller’s agent has a new plan. He is accepting all offers from all bidders the next day up until 6pm, then will decide on the “winner”. My friend said no thanks and to tell the other realtor to f-off.
It was all surreal.
His agent even called him in the morning begging him to make an offer – even just 420,500.
In the end, my friend and I walked away disgusted with realtors. He’s stuck in an agreement with his buyer’s agent for the next two months.
These realtor representation agreements that buyer’s are given to sign are ridiculous. They even have a secondary clause on the bottom that extends the obligations for 30 days beyond the expiration date stated in the contract!!
After this experience, I will never sign one of those.
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