Ep. 41 - Why Buyers Are Pausing, Sellers Are Dreaming, and Agents Are Faking It

In this episode of The Last Honest Realtor podcast, host David Fleming pulls back the curtain on the strange dynamics shaping Toronto’s spring real estate market in 2025. From fatigued buyers to hopeful-but-unrealistic sellers—and agents caught somewhere in between—David explores the widening gap between perception and reality in today’s market.

With his signature candor and grounded perspective, David cuts through the noise surrounding Trump headlines, tariff shocks, and media-driven panic to uncover the real story: stagnating showings, fantasy pricing, and a subtle—but unmistakable—shift beneath the surface.

This isn’t a crash, but it isn’t business as usual either.

In This Episode:

• Why fewer listings are getting offers—and what it really means
• How seller expectations are stuck in the 2022 peak
• The “don’t bother” attitude that’s killing deals before they start
• Why some agents are pretending nothing’s changed—and how that hurts everyone
• What buyers, sellers, and smart agents should actually be doing right now

Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
01:00 – The Media Noise vs. Agent Whispers
05:00 – What’s Really Happening with Offer Nights
09:30 – The Return of Fantasy Pricing
14:00 – Why Agents Saying “Don’t Bother” Is a Red Flag
20:00 – Showings Are Down—And That Matters
25:00 – Buyer Fatigue Isn’t What It Used to Be
30:00 – Are We Seeing the Start of a Pattern?
36:00 – David’s Advice for Sellers, Buyers, and Agents Alike

Don’t Miss:

• David’s breakdown of why fantasy pricing is quietly killing the spring market
• The subtle signs that the ground is shifting beneath the surface
• A clear-eyed look at what to do when the market isn’t loud—it’s whispering

Subscribe to The Last Honest Realtor on YouTube or your preferred podcast platform. Like, comment, and share your take on what you’re seeing in today’s market.

Bosley Real Estate
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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:00 The Media Noise vs. Agent Whispers
• 5:00 What’s Really Happening with Offer Nights
• 9:30 The Return of Fantasy Pricing
• 14:00 Why Agents Saying “Don’t Bother” Is a Red Flag
• 20:00 Showings Are Down—And That Matters
• 25:00 Buyer Fatigue Isn’t What It Used to Be
• 30:00 Are We Seeing the Start of a Pattern?
• 36:00 David’s Advice for Sellers, Buyers, and Agents Alike

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Last Honest Realtor podcast. I'm your host, David Fleming. Thank you so much for joining me today as we try to cut through all of the noise out there, and there is a lot of it, and discuss the very basics of the Toronto real estate market. Now, nothing basic about it. I would say that we are through the first quarter and we'd love to discuss some of the amazing statistics. I covered this in my blog earlier in the week, but it goes without saying that between Donald Trump and tariffs and the Dow Jones, the trifecta of news is Everybody out there is worried. And it's not just buyers. It's not just sellers. It's not people that are in and out of the market, mortgage brokers, home inspectors. Everybody across the board is asking what the heck is happening in the market. So for me right now, if I'm a buyer or I'm a seller, I'm a real estate participant, I'm saying, who am I supposed to listen to? Now, I'm not going to say, well, you've got to listen to my podcast. But what I am going to say is that there's so much noise and irrespective of what Donald Trump did and what's happening with the Dow Jones and are people still gonna be able to buy? Have they lost all their savings? All of the stuff that's really sensationalizing the media. What's being missed in this is that even before this happened, They were kind of whispers of a shift in the marketplace. So I've always maintained that the media is usually a little bit behind the story. If you really want to know what's happening, you've got to talk to the agents. And the agents are talking to themselves. I mean one another, that is, not talking to themselves, although I do that from time to time. And I find that in the average week, I'll probably talk to at least a dozen agents just to say what's happening out there. What are you seeing? I literally walked into the kitchen here at Bosley to make lunch and I saw another agent and I stopped and I said, what are you seeing? What's happening in your market? That's where you're going to find out what's really going on in the real estate market, not necessarily through the news. So the first point I want to make it today is that while the media is kind of giving a cautiously optimistic tone, the agents themselves We, and I mean the ones that are selling real estate, not all 72,000, we are looking at what's happening and where we think it's going. This is the time every year where we start to see a little bit in a shift in the market to say that maybe April, May, things usually start to cool off. The question is, is this going to happen a little bit sooner? So listings are stagnating. We see buyer energy dipping. Deals, they're a little bit harder to come by. And what I want to do today is kind of shine a light on these whispers and ask the critical questions, should we be worried? I don't mean about the Dow Jones. I don't mean about Donald Trump. I don't mean about tariffs. I'm talking about the market in general. And I'm not leading in saying that you should or shouldn't. I'm saying what are the questions that you should be asking of yourself, your real estate agent. And I wanna start with overall sales data. So if you're a stats nerd like me, go and take a look at Toronto Realty blog where I broke down the March statistics. We're coming off of a March where we saw 5,011 sales. That is the lowest sales ever, by ever I mean since 2000 when I started tracking the data. And it's not even close to the previous lowest, which was 2009. That was 6,171 sales. So we're like 18% behind the second fewest. That was what March was. The absorption rate in the condo market is back down to barely over a quarter. That means one out of every four listings is producing a sale that is incredibly bleak. And that is in the 416 and the 905. When I say listings, I mean, look, we could list the same property five times. But that is the ratio of sales to listings. And... I would say that there are so many anecdotes out there and you could walk into any brokerage and listen to any agent talk or any team meeting or any rah-rah convention about how to sell real estate. And what I wanna know is what does the data say? What's happening on the offer nights? What's happening in the negotiating tables? There's just so much nonsense to cut through. So look, there's nothing like the tension of a market that won't say what it's thinking, but the agents are talking and I spoke to an agent the other day that called me on one of my listings. He said to me, I'd bring you an offer, but I think it's a waste of time. Unique perspective. I mean, is it for a dollar? I said, what do you mean by that? And he said, follow this. This is absolutely amazing. He said, I've spoken to so many listing agents lately and I tell them what I want to bring and they say, don't bother. Now, I recognize by telling you what I'm about to tell you, you could say, oh, David, you're just trying to clear out inventory, sell it for the lowest possible price. Hang on a second. Hold that thought. In order to do a deal, you need to get an offer. So right off the bat, if you tell somebody don't bother, and yeah, there are times. There are times when you might negotiate like that. But if you're telling someone don't bother, you're shooting yourself in the foot. So let me give you an example. I bring out a listing at$4 million. And in the first 48 hours, someone says, I'm thinking I might bring 3.8. Don't bother. Don't bother. We're not taking a penny under list. That is negotiating. That is leverage. That is a very different scenario than the condo I've got on the market for 85 days. And someone says, they're going to bring me an offer. I'm going to say, don't bother. These are the conversations that agents are having. And this agent that called me and said, too many people are telling me don't bother. It completely echoes what we were talking about at our Bosley meeting three days prior. Why would you ever say don't bother? So good agents understand how to work in a changing market. Agents are talking, but only some of them know what's happening. And when I got this offer, and yes, it was low, it represented a starting point. We spent five days negotiating this. It was about price. It was about closing. It was about condition. It was stupid things they wanted us to repair. hair in the unit because it's a first-time buyer. They can't do anything. Kind of dating myself there, but I'm going to expect it's a young 20-something. Long story short, had I been like every other agent and said, don't bother bringing me the offer, I wouldn't have a sale, my client wouldn't be moving on, and all those other agents out there are doing what? Sitting with their seller clients. So the whispers that we're talking about. One of the whispers is that agents are kind of talking about fewer showings. Now it's not something that we're going to advertise. This is why I'm referring to it as a whisper. In a busy market, and I always prep my clients by having a phone call the night before the listing, and I would say that in a busy market or just a slightly above average market, your second day of the listing, It's when you get the most showings. I tell my clients for a freehold, you're at 9.99, we have an offer date, we want 1.2. I'd love to see four to five showings booked the first day, six to eight showings booked the second day, another four to five the next day, and so on. I'll set a target. I'd love to see 40 showings. What I'm seeing right now is that showings, are starting to go down. And these are the whispers among the agent pool out there that are saying, I'm just not getting as many showings. So a great example is a property that I sold with a bully offer. I had 14 showings booked, not through, but 14 booked in the first three days. The target that I had set was about 20. This was below average. Now I also look for how many people are gonna ask for a copy of the home inspection. That's a very good indication of interest. I had two. I was hoping to have six or seven. So by the time we got this bully offer, it was an absolute no-brainer. We took it and we ran. Now, I don't wanna say it was lucky, I would say that it was good fortune, but at the end of the day, and this is gonna play into some of the other things that we're talking about, my clients were realistic, I was definitely realistic, and we were in tune with the current market because it changes so quickly, and when it's changing, you have to absolutely change with it. So another whisper out there is that I don't wanna use the term bidding war because define a bidding war, what is that really? But the 999 listing that gets 14 offers and sells for a million 350 where the four top highest were sent back a couple of times, that is happening more infrequently. So a colleague of mine, she had a listing in the West End, she did have 12 offers, she told me that she worked with the top four and that all four improved and then once they were done, the person that was maybe number three bid against himself, she didn't even ask them to, they came up. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I'm saying that having looked at what's selling in competition, having monitored the number of offers, we are noticing that the bidding wars, so to speak, I wouldn't say the bidding wars are happening. I'd say even the over asking, it's only in select situations. So I feel already this is coming off as negative, pessimistic, bearish. It's not all that, guys. What it is, is about being in tune with the market. you have a C minus house, you list low with an offer date, what are you expecting to happen? The A plus house list low with an offer date, absolutely gonna sell, gonna be a slobber knocker. But we're not in 2022 where you can take a dog listing, underprice it and expect multiple offers. So listings that might have sold last year within a certain timeframe aren't selling now. What I'm seeing is that 30 days, that used to be like, oh, 30 days, we should talk about reducing the price. I'd say it's less now. It really is. And not to say that, and bear with me here, you should probably think, well, let's reduce the price in 60 days now instead of 30. It's not that. It's that within 15 days, we've had zero to one showings. Okay, yeah, we've gotta do something. So 60 is the new 30 in terms of days on market. I would say I've had a few properties, and this goes back to last fall, that took 60 days, specifically the condos. 60 is the new 30, and overall, the days on market has certainly increased. So... The next point I want to make, guys, is that it's not panic. I would describe it as discomfort. I'm tired of hearing these hyperboles in the market. And as a tangent, I went on CTV News last week and we were talking about this story where the Bank of Montreal said they're going to have to tinker with some of the lending criteria now that there's tariffs and people could be in affected industries. The word they used was deny. The banks are going to deny mortgages to people. No, no, no, no. They're tinkering. Okay, that sounds silly, tinkering. They're not denying mortgages. They're strengthening their regulations. So what I would say here, again, is a word like panic. I don't like that word. What I would say is discomfort. It is discomfort because the sellers are not accustomed to what they expected, what they were accustomed to prior, and the listing agents most certainly are not ready for the change in the market. So discomfort sometimes has a way into turning into something bigger when no one addresses it. As I said, a lot of the agents are out there addressing it right now. So concerns beneath the noise. We talk about buyer fatigue a lot. Usually when we get to say a May or a June in a really busy market where you've got buyers that have lost five, six, seven times, that's when the buyer fatigue sets in. I don't think that we have that buyer fatigue in the same way. What I would say is that the buyer fatigue now is is the news cycle. It started this year with Trump's taking office on the 20th. We all got to wait and see. And then it was the tariffs on February 3rd, 30-day extension, March 3rd. Then it was April 2nd, Liberation Day. The buyers are fatigued, not in the same way that they have been in years prior, by losing over and over and then getting to June and saying, I need a break. The buyers are fatigued by the nonstop news cycle. So a little bit of the fear may be starting to set in. And it's not so much fear of prices dropping as much as I would say it's fear of the unknown. I would also say that, and I've always mused, buyers would rather pay more if they're buying on the way up than buy at the trough and see it go down a little bit more. And I'm going to come back to that. So, you know, another concern beneath the noise, sellers hanging on to fantasy pricing. They're banking on this spring resurgence that might not come I get so many calls in Jan and Feb from people saying, I want to sell in June. And I say, why June? Well, that's when the market's better, based on what? You have been in the same house for 35 years. You haven't really transacted. So selling in June, my argument has always been most people have bought by then. Another concern beneath the noise, so to speak, we just talked about buyers and the fatigue. Now let's talk about sellers and the fantasy pricing, because many of these sellers are banking on a fantasy price. Many of them are banking on a spring resurgence that might not come. And then many of them, unfortunately, are banking on both of those things, a fantasy price. And of course, it's going to happen in the spring or the early summer. So not exclusive to 2025. I would say that every year I get phone calls in January and February from folks that say, I'm going to sell in June. And I assume there's a reason for it, like that's when they're retiring or maybe that's when they've bought a property out west and they're moving. No, the answer is usually, well, that's the best market. To which I say, based on what? they don't usually have an answer. And I can tell them based on statistics and based on empirical evidence, I see every year by that point, most buyers have bought. And I mentioned that in the previous point with the idea of buyer fatigue. I think that this year, just like every other year, we will see a rounding off in the market in May and June. I think that for the sellers that every single year hold out for that market, this year is gonna be a little bit tougher. So an anecdote, if you will, not really an anecdote, a true story, I guess is a better way of putting it, but an anecdote, anecdotal evidence that really drives this point home has to do with somebody that called me last week, hadn't heard from in years, remembered the name, remembered the property, and this person said, you appraised my home at 1.5 million, I'm ready to sell. Now, to my absolute horror, I went into my computer and I looked at the date on the appraisal, opinion of value, if you will, and it was February of 2022. That's great. February of 2022. For those not in the know, that is the absolute peak of our market. That was the highest average home price and we have fallen off since there. So I said, yes, I appraise it for 1.5 million. What do you think it's worth today? And they said, well, you know, we would take 1.5. No, sorry, sorry. I appraised your home at the absolute peak of the market like 15, 20% ago. What do you think it's worth now? And this conversation went on about 1.5, 1.5 and a quarter, 1.49. And I'm finding myself shouting into the phone, your house is worth 1.3 million. Now, Chris went over and met with the sellers. Chris did a full walkthrough. He reported back and he said, yeah, they've got some serious work to do. But the seller got it ahead of it. The seller, nice gentleman, said, totally upfront and honest, called me and said, listen, I've given it a lot of thought. My wife and I are not prepared to list this for less than$1.6 million. I get it, I'm in sales, I'm a jerk. I only wanna sell properties that are realistically gonna sell. No, it's not like that. I cannot wave a magic wand. I have to work in the market that we're in. I told them, yes, had you sold in February of 2022 at the absolute peak, you would have got 1.5 million. That could be a one, two house right now for all I know. And I don't know because nothing is selling in that area. And for them to say 1.6 million, it just goes to show you the element of fantasy pricing. So another anecdote, if you will, a colleague of mine made an offer on a home. There were eight offers. The listing agent tried every trick in the book. couldn't get up to a price that the seller would accept. They turned down eight offers and relisted the home. Now this is very common. We've talked about this on this podcast, on Toronto Realty Blog all the time. But the market that we're in right now, for a seller to receive eight offers and turn them all down, it just speaks to that element of fantasy. So the third concern beneath the noise, if you will, I mentioned buyers, I mentioned sellers. The third part of this would be agents. Agents are split between those that are pretending everything's totally normal and those that are prepared for the turbulence. And that's not a bad thing. Turbulence. Every market has turbulence. The stock market, oh, that was all Donald Trump and all that. I get it. But it doesn't matter whether you're selling widgets or whether you're selling shoes, whether you're selling real estate. Every market has ups and downs, peaks and valleys. It's never turbulence. a strictly balanced market for 35 years straight. Real estate is no different. And right now what we're seeing is that the problem, both being sellers and agents, is that the sellers have fantasy pricing and the agents won't set them straight. So it stems from the sellers, don't get me wrong. I mentioned the fantasy pricing. But in my case, I had told those folks, your house is worth one three. They said, we won't list it for less than one six. And to finish that thought, because I kind of worried that I came off as a jerk there, I said to them, guys, I'd absolutely love to do this for you. I think I'm better than any agent out there in terms of getting you the highest possible price. but you guys are really, really far off. And they did not understand or they didn't want to understand and didn't hear back from them. So had they said this listing is yours, David at 1.6, thank you so much, I'm gonna pass. It's yours at 1.5, thank you so much, I'm gonna pass. I can't wave a magic wand. They're so far out of whack with the pricing. But at the same time, there are thousands of agents that will list that property. That is what I'm talking about when I talk about a split between those pretending it's fine and those preparing for turbulence. That concern beneath the noise, the buyers, the sellers, and the agent. So on the surface, our market's only down two to two and a half percent. I'm talking year over year. In February, it was 2.2%. In March, it was 2.5. But behind the scenes, the sales are lower than last year and the offer dates are starting to falter. So put this all together and you can start to see on the surface everything's fine and everything's normal and everything's well and good but then we get rocked by Trump, tariffs, trade war, Dow Jones and you're starting to see the fissures. Now another thing I want to talk about in the context of this market is pattern recognition. So here's a fun analogy. Think about a movie with the FBI or the police where they have one of those big bulletin boards. And they've got all these pictures and those strings that connect the suspects to the evidence and what have you. If you're wondering where this is going, trust me. In 2017, that was the first time I had ever seen like a major shift in the market. And I recall the run-up January, February, March, and into early April where things were absolutely ripping. And we started to see properties not selling or being relisted. So I would print them and I would kind of keep them over here on my desk. And then I ran out of room and I would put them over here on And you know where this is going. Eventually, Chris and I went into the boardroom at the old Bosley building on Merton Street. We started taping them to the wall. And eventually, like they do in these police dramas, we started kind of connecting them with arrows and stuff. We were trying to make sense of the pattern. And it was essentially that the market was dying. That's what we concluded. But when it's happening so slowly, you don't recognize the pattern when you're in it. You only recognize it after the fact. So picture a market where Jan, Feb, March, everything's getting offers, everything's selling. And then you see this property didn't sell. Oh, this property didn't sell. And this property didn't sell. And you start to say, what is happening here? So we're putting all the relists up. We're taking all the ones that didn't sell. We're still keeping track of what did sell. And we're looking for those patterns. Now, that was 2017. That was, I can't believe it, eight years ago. We saw a similar thing happen in 2022. But in 2022, it was basically the government saying, hey, we're going to make rates skyrocket. The party's over. They essentially announced it in 2017. Yes, the federal government was saying housing's too expensive, and between the municipality and the province and the federal government, we're going to take steps to try to make housing more affordable. Sure, they signaled that we might see a downturn in the market, but they didn't artificially, or rather that was artificial, they didn't intentionally take steps to reduce prices like the government did in 2022 when they increased interest rates. Now, They didn't set out to reduce home prices, but they set out to remove affordability, which would in turn reduce prices. So that was 2017. That was the first time that I really ever sat down to identify the pattern. And I've been aware of that ever since. And what I'm trying to say is that when we're in a market like this, where we feel like there's whispers, we feel like there's a shift, you being either the buyer, the seller, or hopefully the agent, need to really look and try to get out ahead of the market and get it ahead of where it's going. It's not unlike Wayne Gretzky saying, I pass to where I know the player is going to be. You need to look at where the market is going to be and that's through pattern recognition. So I mentioned that over the last few years we've seen these gangbuster first few months and it levels off where usually most people have bought or usually in a red hot market people are so tired of losing that they put their searches on hold. Post May 2-4 weekend for me that's kind of the measure I've seen over the last few years. Don't quote me on it because this year is an awkward year but pay attention to the patterns. Pay attention to the number of relists, which is something I'm going to talk on, and then look for the red flags. So the changing buyer behavior, the stale inventory, the rising days on market, I look at failed offer dates. So last night, there was a host of properties that had offer dates, and I simply went into Broker Bay at 9.30 at night, and I checked every single one. You click register offer, you go, it tells you how many offers are registered. A ton of properties with zero offers. Now we're going to see what? relists. So you get the person that wanted 1.3 million. They listed at 999. I've told you showings are down. Requests for home inspections are down. Bully offers are down. What do they do when they end up with zero offers? Do they relist at 1299? Do they relist higher? The seller wants 1.3. I need to build in the negotiating cushion. I'll put it up at 1349. What are those folks doing? Are they leaving it for two weeks with the note that the offer date is somewhere in the past? Those are the patterns that we're trying to recognize. So I think as far As far as absorption rate goes, another very important statistics, one that I love talking about on my blog, I'm writing a blog right now which will be up in a couple of days, about the condo market and that declining absorption rate. Now that absorption rate has always been way lower than the overall market, but what I saw in the month of March, with the overall absorption rate was 29%, And the condo market absorption rate was 26%. I would expect that the condo market absorption rate is always 10 to 15% lower than the overall market. But a 29% absorption rate, for those not fully aware, that means the ratio of sales to new listings is 29%. Anything below 50% is at least in theory a buyer's market. You can argue that at 45 or 40%, well, you know, it depends on where you are. 29%, there's no argument that that's anything like a seller's market. So my take on this section, guys, we've seen false alarms many times before, but some of the ingredients this time feel a little too familiar. And the false alarms, notwithstanding, the real alarm here, and I hate to keep hammering on this, is Trump, tariffs, and the Dow Jones. I've never seen anything like it. And I think I lived through it. 2001, the tech meltdown. I remember I was in university and I'd walk in the business center and you'd see the ticker and it's this stock's down 30%. But it was different. And I could tell you stories about this. I tried telling people that aren't of the same vintage. The internet was new. Somebody could be like stamps.com. I bookmarked the URL. Now I'm fundraising. What are you gonna do with that? I'm gonna sell stamps on the internet. Chairs.com, yeah, we sell chairs. Great, here's$200 million of seed capital. No wonder that market tanked. I lived through that. It was crazy. 2008. Financial crisis, a meltdown, which now behind the scenes, we obviously know, was a long time coming with mortgage-backed securities. We can talk about the 2017 real estate peak in Toronto. Well, that was just a long run-up. 2022, well, that was based on COVID. Everyone moving, everyone buying at low interest rates. Now, here we are in 2025. Trump, tariffs, Dow Jones. Never seen anything like it. So should you panic? No. but there are a few things that you need to know. For buyers, you have negotiating power, but do not assume that that means everything's a deal. I always look at the property where, again, I keep using the same numbers over and over, but it's a$1.2 million house and it's listed at 999 with an offer date and the cocky buyer walks in and he's like, well, I had all my money in cash when the Dow Jones went down 15% and now I'm gonna offer 900,000 on this house because the world's on fire. Listen, dude, yeah, good for you, but it's still Toronto, still the real estate market, it's 2025, it's a million two house, they don't have to sell, you're not the only buyer for it. I know I'm creating a caricature here, but there are people like that. And for the buyers, I would say, listen, buyer's market, absorption rate's low, calm, pick your spot, be successful. There's something to be said for going for the jugular, proverbial, but I think you also have to keep a rational head. And that's what some buyers aren't doing out there. So opportunity, fortune favors the bold. And I mentioned this before. Buyers want to feel good. They want to buy on the way back up. I've given you these numbers before. I can even picture it in my head. Say that a stock or a widget or real estate is trading at$100. It goes down to 95, then 90, then 85, then 80. and then 75, and the buyer says, jeez, I should really buy in. But the buyer's afraid of what? It drops to 70. So the buyer doesn't buy in, it drops to 70, and the buyer says, thank God, because it dropped further. Then it goes to 75, then it goes to 80, then it goes to 85, and then that buyer buys in at 92.50. Now, 92.50, still below the 100, That buyer got a deal, but the buyer could have bought it at 75 and they didn't. The buyer would rather buy on the way back up because they feel good. That is where so many buyers are right now. And as I said, no need to panic. Fortune favors the bold. Opportunity, I wouldn't say of a lifetime, but for some, I remember, I think it was Rob Carrick that wrote a few months ago about what an incredible opportunity this is for this next generation to buy into the real estate market. That's a guy that's a real estate bear, but his article was fantastic, and it talked about how prices have come down since the 2022 peak, and now you've got interest rates declining. Very surprised to see somebody who's bearish on real estate write a headline like that. But again, personal finance calmness that recognizes the opportunity. So for sellers, I would say react very quickly. If your home isn't moving, adjust before the market tells you that you need to. Stale listings look like properties that nobody wants. And so while I'm amazed I've got a listing on the market for 62 cumulative days through two listings and someone comes in and makes an offer, there are a lot of folks out there that aren't seeing that. Now, I don't want to toot my own horn, but as I said earlier, I am rolling out the red carpet for cooperating agents. None of this nonsense about, no, we won't even look at it. Don't bother. All my listings are staged. They look perfect. There's a reason why our things are selling through 65, 70 days in the market. But when you have a stale listing, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, it looks like a property that nobody else wants. Now, price realistically from the beginning, we mentioned don't wait too long to reduce, but you've got to be realistic about the price point. We need saleable listings in this market. And so when I put something out at$9.99 that I think, oh gosh, I hope, I hope, I hope, and then someone else lists for$1,099,000, I'm like, okay, great. Now the seller might be like, David, what? These people just listed for$1,099,000. Yes, they're crazy and they're gonna sit and they'll reduce three times and they'll end up with less. So don't second guess yourself. Do your research, figure it out in advance and move forward. And last but not least, my point here, be reasonable. Know what year it is. I can't make it any clearer than that. And this is not just for sellers, which this point says, but it's for sellers, buyers, and agents. Understand the market that we're in. Now, as I said, for agents, stop pretending. Be the voice of reason and not reassurance. Your client tells you they want 1.6 for their house that you appraised at market peak in 2022 for 1.3. Be the voice of reason. Don't just say, yep, that's great, perfect, let's go ahead and do that. Because so much of that is happening out there. And someone commented on my blog, I believe it was on Monday's post. And they said, we need a new statistic for new, new listing and new, new, new listing. It was a joke, but they're saying we need relisting and re-relisting because there's so much nonsense out there. People just price over and over and over. If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound? Yeah, okay. But if you price something so far out of whack with the market and no one's looking at it, is it really for sale? That was the point I believe that that reader was trying to make. Smart players act early. They don't rush. They read the room better than the rest. Again, I'm gonna repeat the example of buying on the way down and getting a better price than buying on the way back up, but I have seen this over and over and over again through every market cycle, 08, 17, 22. People feel real comfortable buying on the way back up. So listen, my bottom line takeaway, markets don't always shout before they shift. Sometimes they whisper. Yeah, I have a flair for the dramatics, but honestly, if you're the kind of client that wants to move smartly, whether you're buying or selling, you need to be listening to these whispers and not just the headlines. The problem in this market is that the media is always behind and those whispers are happening at the ground level and only via the top agents. And I'm so sorry if you don't like that. You think all agents are the same. The agents that do the business and should I talk about? Okay, sure. Why not? We brought out six listings this week. We are busy. We are working with a multitude of buyers. We have five other listings that are on the market. I'm not saying that to brag, but rather to say that is what we are doing. I have talked to six or seven different agents on the phone today in different areas about what is happening in those markets, price points, and geographic areas. Then you've got your agent, Billy. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He told me I should just list the house for whatever I want. Guys, come on. It's crunch time. We are so far beyond that right now. And it doesn't matter whether the market is up, down, or sideways. You should always be listening to somebody that's in the know. But it seems like, it's funny saying this, everyone's got a podcast. Everyone's got an opinion. Everyone wants to talk real estate. The media, they're just reporting on what happened six weeks ago. But the agents out there, so many of them are not informed. And as I said, these whispers are happening at ground level. And the rest of the agents just aren't getting it. So what does it mean for you, the buyers? Ask your agent what's happening with other listings, not just the one you want. Do not have tunnel vision. Ask the agent for stats, for macro views, more than just, hey, what's our plan with this particular property? And have a backup plan, because I've seen people wait and wait and wait, and then it sells, and then what? Now, if it's a one bed, one bath condo, I'm sure there's going to be another one. But as I said, be opportunistic. Fortune favors the bold. But man... pigs get slaughtered when it comes to greed. And if you're waiting for something, the more days it's on the market, the better deal I can get. You got to take a step back and say, I'm doing really well on this. Buying a house for my family. My wife is pregnant. Whatever it is, I need to get my son to that particular school district for September. Remember that real estate is not a pure investment play. There is more to it. Now for the sellers, you do not get a second chance at a first listing impression. And so again, I don't want to toot our horn here. We are not changing what we do in this market. Every one of our properties, get the sellers out, get their stuff out, stage it, paint it, repair it, clean it, photograph it, videos, virtual tour, Instagram, social media, it has to be perfect. And that's the way that we're doing it in this market. That is the only way that it's working because when we have a listing that goes up and it looks absolutely amazing and you've got a buyer that's already a bit nervous and they're buying with emotion and then the same model four floors up has iPhone photos and it's tenanted and it looks like garbage, I know you want to think you're the smart person that would say, I'm going to go for the one that doesn't look as good because I can get a better deal. That's not the buyer pool. They buy with emotion. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. Now, if you're sitting on the market, adjust before it becomes a case study. That's kind of a funny point. A case study maybe for Toronto Realty Blog because we have done so many. And agents, what it means for you, if your clients are nervous, guess what? They all are. Everybody's nervous out there. Everyone's anxious. If you're not guiding with clarity, you're just adding to the noise. And I would say, and I get it, some agents do one to two deals a year. It sounds very silly, but if a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you take your$900,000 condo and you list it for 1.1 million because you're afraid to tell the seller what's up, Is it really listed for sale? So folks, that is it for me for this week. That was fun. That was a lot. Love to hear from you. Feel free to drop me a comment if you're watching on YouTube in the comments section. Let me know how you think the market is doing. What are you seeing out there? I always love the predictions. The market's going to drop 85%. Good. Go ahead and post that comment. We'll see how it ages. If you are listening to this on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, please remember to like, comment, or subscribe. We'll see you next time here on The Last Honest Realtor.