Welcome back to our monthly report on the real estate market.

August was by all accounts a uneventful month. I say uneventful because unlike the past 18 months, August’s numbers pretty much mirrored the numbers we saw in July. This is both a good and bad. It’s good in the sense that things are “settling down” as it were. It’s bad, if you want to call it that, in that it’s August, and we generally don’t take the numbers in August too seriously, very much the way we understand that December is “seasonally slow”.

Having said that, there are some significant events that are worth identifying. First and foremost, the Bank of Canada did not raise interest rates on September 6th. Regardless of what Rob Ford thinks, this was not done as per his request but rather because of economic indicators. Primarily because, although Inflation rose a touch in July, it was not enough to concern the BOC to raise the rates.

The other noteworthy event was for the third month in a row the average price of a home in the GTA fell in August by roughly 3%. If interest rates continue to hold and currently rates, that could mean that this fall could be very active, and any losses we’ve incurred in the last 3 months could be regained. That is however, a big “if”.

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With respect to other market indicators, please refer to the charts attached to this report. You will see that the number of sales have kept pace with the numbers in July, while the number of listings have dropped slightly. This has caused the all-important indicator, the “Sales-to-New-Listing ratio to rise above the 40% threshold. This is a good indication, at least short term, that things may be looking a little brighter as we move into our fall market. As we have become accustomed to recently, the caveat here is what happens with interest rates on October 25, and December 6th.

If you are planning on buying or selling real estate in the next few months, feel free to consult with us first as there are very specific strategies we can employ in this market to leverage it in your favour.

Regards,

Ken Wilder BA, ABR, CH