James Warren, real estate agent with Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd., says he is advising homeowners to hold off in areas with abundant inventory.A surfeit of listings in many Toronto neighbourhoods has prompted an increasing number of real estate agents to resort to an unfamiliar strategy: they are discouraging homeowners from listing their homes for sale.
Mr. Warren does much of his business in Rosedale, where one luxury property traded hands in November for $21-million.The problem since, Mr. Warren says, is that other homeowners in the upscale enclave have been setting asking prices around the $20-million mark, aiming for a similar result without success.As inventory in Rosedale soared in recent weeks, a cluster of properties sat unsold at that level.
Anita Springate-Renaud, broker with Engel & Volkers in central Toronto, believes buyer confidence is slowly building. She points to a home in her own neighbourhood of Lawrence Park, where inventory is tight.But at the lower end, buyers who rely on a mortgage are waiting for interest rates to drop further.Ms. Springate-Renaud recently took down the listing for a condo on Blue Jays Way with an asking price of $829,000.
As for prices, Mr. Sondhi noted that the national average price managed to grind higher in the spring as more expensive homes took a larger share of the sales pie. In May, the sales-to-new-listings ratio stood at about 40 per cent in the GTA, which puts the market in balanced territory.As more agents caution sellers against launching a property on the market now if they don’t have to, Mr. Sondhi says a delay may make sense.Looking farther out to 2025, Mr. Sondhi lifted his growth forecasts for sales and prices as more of those buyers on the sidelines move into the market and relief from high interest rates is more apparent.
Mr. Warren says gridlock appears to be starting around the $5-million mark because buyers purchasing a house for less than that tend to need financing and many are waiting for a drop in mortgage rates. In his opinion, the old adage that the three most important factors in real estate are ‘location, location, location’ is outdated.