Benchmark Real Estate Strategy

August is a depressed month. The entire summer season is a depressed market in the GTA.

This fact won’t stop the media from their typical/planned September headline “Toronto Home Prices Dropped X% Last Month”. It will be misleading, as it always is but it catches attention.

To those in the know, August is our calm before the storm that starts right after labour day and ends somewhere in the middle-to-end of November (our fall market: the second largest season for volume).

What you should know:

Overall, all the areas I cover here are still in a sellers market, although Oakville and South Etobicoke seem to be inching towards an eventual more balanced market status.

Pent-up demand and existing supply aside, the volume of new listings and new buyers coming to market in the next few weeks will be the key factor in determining where prices go for the rest of the year.

What do you think is going to happen?
Will inventory rise without being met by equal or superior demand? (leading to either a balanced or buyers market)
OR
Will the ranks of buyers grow, emboldened by the recent BoC announcement, to the point of outmatching existing and upcoming inventory? (leading even deeper into sellers market territory)
OR
Something else altogether?

Comment below what you think! None has a crystal ball so there are no wrong answers… only wrong people! Joking…

Here comes the Fall market 🍂

In Toronto real estate, we usually have two major seasons: Spring and Fall. Our Fall market starts right after the labour day weekend with an influx of inventory from property owners who patiently waited for buyers to come back from their summer activities/retreats.

It’s often a surprise to outsiders and even to some locals that the Summer market is a slow one. We have such a short summer to enjoy in Toronto that we aim to make the most of it and that rarely entails hunting for some hot real estate.

Many buyers also were on the sidelines waiting for the Bank of Canada rate announcement (yesterday’s story). Now that we know the rate is holding steady, these buyers have the opportunity to find their new place or investment during the Fall market and lock in a fixed-rate for their mortgage before the next BoC announcement on October 25.

Ready? Set – Go! 🏁

Happy Hunting everyone

Time flies... 10 years ago I was negotiating for a hot corner loft in the WQW neighbourhood. You wouldn't believe the price it was... and people were thinking it was expensive back then.

Be honest...
what was the biggest myth or misconception about real estate that you believed to be true until you finally went through your first purchase?

A few sound bites to complement the slides after looking at the metrics. DM if you want to know more about a specific market.

Toronto Condos:
Volume is up compared to July of 2022 but that was the month when condos started losing steam last year. On a Year To Date (YTD) level, volume is actually down 16%. Listings are failing more often than they used to and inventory is increasing towards balanced-market levels.

Toronto Detached:
YTD volume is down 13.6% and the lowest in more than 3 decades. We could see a reversal in that trend and catch up to 2022 levels with more months like those we had recently. Low and decreasing inventory is pressuring prices upward. The average price is on fire and statistically, it’s not thanks to the luxury segment as that one has been down 39% in volume YTD. That means the more approachable segments are seeing strong appreciation on their own and driving the overall market performance.

South Etobicoke: Luxury sales are back! The average price increase is completely out of whack because the luxury segment had completely disappeared in July of 2022. This is a perfect example of why price indexes can make much more sense than looking at average prices: Avg price up 34.4% but price index up 8.63%. The index is often a better depiction of reality.

Mississauga:
Slowest July in decades but despite that, inventory shows sellers still have the upper hand. We might be seeing home owners with fixed rate mortgages keep their properties longer as they cannot afford to move and get higher rate mortgages.

Oakville:
July 2022 already was its slowest sales month since 2010 and July 2023 exactly matched that poor performance with only 81 detached homes sales. Inventory is getting closer to balanced-market territory. But don’t let that deter you, Oakville doesn’t care and is still a most aspirational suburb in the GTA with an average price at least 30% above that of its neighbours.

Burlington:
July sales volume looks flat but that figure is down 14.2% YTD. However, it’s not alarming as 2023 is simply a return to pre-pandie volume! One of the best turnaround performances in the GTA and its ultra-low Inventory confirms it.

Debating if you are ready for home ownership?! 🤔

Recently I have had so many conversations with people spending the summer setting themselves up for success in purchasing their first property. Homeownership can be such an exciting yet petrifying thing. Hence preparation is critical ‼️

To avoid analysis paralysis, here are the major questions to ask yourself before getting into the market:

🥐 How does homeownership align with my long-term financial goals, such as building equity, stability, or investment potential?
🥐 Can I afford (all) the upfront costs associated with buying a home, such as a down payment, closing costs, and moving expenses?
🥐 Do I have a stable income and a budget in place to cover mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs?
🥐 Am I prepared for the responsibilities of homeownership, including regular maintenance, repairs, and landscaping?
🥐 Do I have an understanding of my affordability and do my needs align with my budget?
🥐 Have I sought guidance from professionals to enhance my knowledge and understanding of the home buying process?

If you are thinking of homeownership, but don’t know where to start - shoot me a DM, let’s chat!📲

Decisions… here, we were selecting the right shade of cabinet door finish for a bathroom closet.

If you’re not involved in the design decisions, shortcuts will naturally happen and the optimal finishes you were hoping for won’t magically manifest themselves. Worse, you might end up with a quick cut and paste from a completely different project getting force-fitted into yours. I see it happen all the time!

If you don’t have an eye for it, get a friend to drop in at the meeting(s) with you. Or in the case of a sale, make sure you select an agent with the proven ability to handle such situations.

Providing feedback to a designer without falling into the micromanaging trap (and “playing designer” ourselves) takes tact and know-how. I’ve worked with many designers and creative teams over the years, like in any industry, none’s perfect but it’s about finding the right fit in creativity, design styles that designer is comfortable working with and communication.

I’m curious to know what were the hardest challenges you encountered the last time you prepared a property for sale. What do you think could have been done better?

It’s time to open part of my playbook. When analyzing the market stats, I always start with these four items before diving deeper where needed:

1)Volume of sales - helps gauge market size and how many buyers are out there. Also a good indication of volume of showings and potential desperation on both clients and agents’ ends.

2) How prices are behaving - Because you have to go where the puck is going. In some markets you’d need to use a grain of salt, or many, as a small sample size can get results skewed by a couple of very high or very low price points.

3) How successful are listings (most people I meet with are surprised when I show them that even in a hot market, the success rate for listings is often around the 50-60% mark). Regardless of this fun fact, knowing if success rates are declining or improving can help you anticipate what may happen to current and upcoming inventory.

4) Inventory and its implications on the balance of power between sellers and buyers. It should provide a decent starting point in regards to how aggressive of a negotiation stance you may take without hurting your chances at closing the gap between buyers and sellers.

I also look at these markets first:
Condos in Toronto
Detached inToronto
Detached in Etobicoke
Detached in Mississauga
Detached in Oakville
and Detached in Burlington

because these are the markets I most focus on but also because other asset types often don’t have enough volume of sales to have statistically valid figures to draw conclusions from. I am not a big fan of mixing them all together like what you’ve probably been used to from more general reports (i.e. combining all GTA, all asset types - the numbers end up making no sense at all).

Please note these 4 figures are just a starting set of indicators and not meant to be a complete analysis - much more goes into shaping the kind of market knowledge that’s required for optimal decision-making.

I’ll be getting these reports out monthly and will have more details and context in the newsletter. DM me the word NEWSLETTER with your email address and I’ll make sure you get it. Alternatively, you can send me your questions here if you have any.

Louis Chaf-frin-geon on Instagram Louis Chaf-frin-geon shared a post on Instagram. Follow their account to see 203 posts.

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