The asking price for a two-bedroom condo at 360 Bloor St. East was cut to $1.269-million this month from $1.299-million.houssmax.ca
Buyers in many segments of the market dawdled through the summer and fall as they held out for additional interest rate cuts from the Bank of Canada or worried about the economy.
Returning sellers are taking steps to appeal to a potential new pool of buyers before competing listings arrive later in the spring.
Elli Davis, real estate agent with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, senses the Toronto market is going to see an injection of new supply. By mid-January she was busy with appointments for evaluations as new sellers prepare to launch their properties for sale.
“Right now it seems like a lot of relists,” Ms. Davis says of the inventory arriving on the market each day. “I believe in February we’re going to have a deluge.”
In the rolling landscape north of Toronto, buyers were not in a rush to purchase many of the farms and recreation properties that came to market last year. The fourth quarter was slower than usual, notes Carolyn Scime, a broker with Chestnut Park Real Estate in Schomberg, Ont.
“There are a lot of good properties that never sold,” she says of areas of Ontario such as Caledon, King Township, Aurora, Mono and Mulmur, where she does much of her business.
In many cases, sellers of appealing properties pulled their sign down over the holidays with a plan to relaunch in early 2025, agents say.
They are looking optimistically toward the spring after the market waned in December.
On a national basis, seasonally adjusted home sales dropped 5.8 per cent in December from November, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. New listings dipped 1.7 per cent in the same period to keep the market in balanced territory in general.
CREA is forecasting an 8.6-per-cent bump in sales across Canada this year compared with 2024. The national average home price is forecast to rise by 4.7 per cent on an annual basis to $722,221 in 2025.
A combination of pent-up demand, lower borrowing costs and fresh listings will likely lead to stronger sales in 2025 across Canada, CREA predicts.
In addition, many consumers appear to be waiting for the right time to lock in a fixed-rate mortgage, according to CREA, with the expectation that the Bank of Canada may signal that rates are about as low as they are likely to go in the current rate-cutting cycle.
That recovery in demand will likely play out differently across Canada, CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart.
In Ontario, Mr. Cathcart predicts a stronger rebound in sales than in prices because of how low sales in the province are currently. There’s also less scope for price gains in expensive parts of the country, such as Ontario and British Columbia, he points out.
In Toronto, Ms. Davis begins collecting photos of properties in various seasons if she knows far in advance that sellers will be listing. She says that presenting the property with a well-staged interior and tidy landscaping is paramount.
“We have an opportunity in the first five or 10 seconds,” she says of the buyer’s first impression of the photos.
Ms. Davis doesn’t hesitate to list through the winter because buyers are active year-round, she says, adding that she had sales in the last week of December.
“I have shovelled and salted many a walk.”
In some cases, sellers who weren’t able to find a buyer after many months will decide to try working with a different agent, but Ms. Davis cautions that often a property fails to sell because the homeowner is attached to an unrealistic price.
“Sometimes if they’re not willing to listen, they could go through three, four or five agents before they see the light,” she says.
Ms. Davis adds that she is sometimes reluctant to take on a listing if she senses that the seller is not willing to take advice.
“If you’re not hitting it right, then you have to adjust. Not everybody wants to hear it.”
Elli Davis, real estate agent with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, says she asks homeowners for photos they may have taken during the summer if she’s listing in winter.houssmax.ca
At 360 Bloor St. E., Ms. Davis cut the asking price of a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo apartment to $1.269-million this month from $1.299-million.
Unit 505, with 1,685 square feet of living space, started out with an asking price of $1.395-million in the fall.
Ms. Davis has photos from the summer months showing the north-facing balcony overlooking a green canopy of trees in the Rosedale Ravine.
In many cases, she asks homeowners for photos they may have taken during the summer if she’s listing in winter.
“I sell pools in January,” says Ms. Davis. “We can clone out the faces and bathing suits.”
For country properties, 2024 brought swelling supply and hesitant buyers.
Many downsizing baby boomers are streamlining their lives, while other sellers are dispensing with vacation homes purchased during the pandemic.
For the buyers, the direction of interest rates often isn’t as important as their age and stage.
“Our segment of the market isn’t terribly interest rate-sensitive,” says Ms. Scime.
Most people plan to hold the property for the long term, she adds, and while making a profit is not their primary motivation, they do want to feel their money is safe.
Some restored century homes surrounded by rolling fields and horse paddocks are sitting on the market for long stretches.
“Those are the hardest sell right now,” she says.
Ms. Scime says the buying pool for such properties is limited, so it’s important for sellers to understand that they generally take longer to sell.
Some big sales have taken place north of Toronto in recent months, she says, but the residences have all been turnkey.
Plenty of baby boomers purchased crumbling stone farmhouses or red-brick Victorians in the 1980s and 1990s, then invested time and money to restore the property as a country retreat.
Prominent architects such as Napier Simpson and William Grierson, who specialized in the preservation of heritage buildings, were in high demand.
Ms. Scime says even the dwellings that have been painstakingly renovated may have finishes that are looking tired today.
“They’re all at the age and stage where they need some TLC,” says Ms. Scime.
The homes that sell quickly today tend to be sleek and contemporary or mid-century modern.
“The buyers that are coming up here don’t want to do any work,” says Ms. Scime.
Ms. Scime sold one 47-acre estate in the Caledon area last year for $7.25-million after listing it with an asking price of $7.98-million in 2023.
Lots of buyers were drawn to the house on 47 acres at 17265 Mountainview Rd. for its 1970s vibe, Ms. Scime says. The building, designed by an architect and complete in 1977, retained the angled walls, wood trim and large stone fireplace from that era.
“That was a very big number,” says Ms. Scime. “That’s the aesthetic that people are looking for.”
She adds that social media also influences the younger crowd of buyers today. Homeowners who purchased their property a few decades ago had different expectations.
“It didn’t have to be showy – it was meant to be a comfortable country house,” she says. “Now everyone wants a perfectly curated house.
At 908 Vandorf Sideroad in Aurora, the house was originally listed during a time of year when the land and gardens were not at their most beautiful, Ms. Scime says. Showings increased dramatically after she had new photos taken to better show the topography, she says.
She also brought in a stylist to add some warmth to the interior photographs.
At 6400 7th Line in New Tecumseth, Ms. Scime took over a property previously listed with another agent. She brought in a stager to declutter and style the interior, and an architectural photographer to take more magazine-quality images of the landscape.
Also in New Tecumseth, Ms. Scime gathered feedback from potential buyers who were concerned about the cost of undertaking some repairs. She updated a retaining wall, replaced some exterior stairs and brought in painters to freshen up the property at 2310 20th Sideroad.
Ms. Scime is relisting another property in Loretto, Ont., that once operated as a ski hill but has now been rezoned for residential.
Just the base of what appears to be a vintage T-bar lift remains, says Ms. Scime.
The feedback from buyers was that the relics of a previous era are part of the appeal.
So far, marketing the property as a building lot has failed to find a buyer. To widen the appeal to a larger pool, Ms. Scime plans to highlight some of the photographs that show people mountain biking on the trails or fly fishing.
“Sometimes we change the story.”
As for the buyers today, Ms. Scime says some of the current buyers of large properties are successful millennials who plan to move to King Township or Caledon full-time.
Another cohort are those in their mid-to-late 60s who want a place for their children and grandchildren to gather. Whereas a family cottage in Muskoka is a popular getaway for some, others find a two or three-hour drive too long.
Driving for an hour or 90 minutes for lunch makes an easy day trip, Ms. Scime points out.
“It’s a way to get their kids up.”