Bidding on homes is difficult to guide in todays market. The challenge for buyers in today’s market is to know if a house that comes on the market is actually within their budget or if it will go substantially higher. The list price is often just a starting point. When a house comes out clients will often call me and ask “What do you think it will sell for. Should we go look at it?” Some houses are selling for what we think they should, some are going a lot higher and some are actually not getting to where we thought. This makes it difficult for buyers to decide what to do and difficult for agents to guide their clients. It’s basically trial and error. This makes for a lot of work for everyone and a lot of up and down emotion for buyers. Not easy..

Will spring and warm weather bring more houses – will it be enough to satisfy the number of buyers in the market. A number of properties have come onto the market in the past couple of weeks. Some sold well over list in multiple offers but not every home achieved the multiple offer situation they were looking for and hence did not achieve the price they were looking for. Some relisted for a higher price. If a significant number of homes come on the market in the coming weeks we will see if the prices level. We think prices may flatten but don’t think they will come down.

So much activity in the market – the desire to move during the pandemic has not died down. Market frenzy continues and now condos are in low supply and high demand. It looks like prices of condos are starting to bounce back up to where they were. Hard to find a bargain. We are expecting a surge of immigration after the pandemic and we anticipate that they will join in the buying frenzy. Hence we anticipate prices of homes and condos to continue to rise this year.

Nothing is stopping buyers – snow, pandemic, virus variant, vaccine shortages, lockdown. Buyers are still scrambling for houses and now even condos are starting to get multiple offers. Toronto keeps going up in value and so does cottage country. Maybe a new perspective for many – if we are going to spend so much time at home let’s make it comfortable. Pandemic may have highlighted the value of a home – its maybe something that we didn’t appreciate as much before. Home has become our safe place and for many their sanctuary.