Dog Days of Summer?
As we enter July, we’ve noticed that the real estate market is beginning to slow down and not only are new listings fewer and further between, but fewer potential buyers are actively looking.
There are no fewer condominiums being built in July and August, and it’s not like any fewer houses exist than during the rest of the year.
So why the lack of action in the real estate market during the Summer?
Here are a few reasons:
1. What came first: the chicken or the egg? Fewer buyers means fewer sellers, and fewer sellers means fewer buyers. Sellers believe that most buyers only look in the spring and the fall, so they hold of listing until those time periods. Buyers usually only look when the most listings are available and thus they have the largest selection, and these times are spring and fall. Buyers are very trendy and finicky, and like to spend weekends house-shopping while the grass is green, birds are chirping, and the sun is shining, i.e. Spring; or when the leaves are turning, the foliage is beautiful, and people are back in their go-go-lifestyles, i.e. Fall.
2. The school calendar plays a role. Parents don’t want their children to move schools and/or houses mid-semester, and with the average closing on a home being 60 days, buying a house in the summer means a mid-fall closing, and this would disrupt your child’s school year. It’s much easier to purchase in the spring and close during the summer, so you have time to get your kids ready for school year, whether changing schools or not.
3. It’s the summer! The sun is shining, the BBQ’s are heating up, and who wants to spend their free time scouring the city for housing? We have about three terrific months of weather in Toronto, and we like to enjoy it while it lasts. The downtown crowd would rather spend their evenings on a Front Street patio than driving around in a Realtor’s car looking for a condo.
4. Real estate agents take vacations during the summer. The more seasoned the Realtor, the more time they can afford to take off, and who doesn’t want time off during the summer? As a younger agent, I’m in the office every day during the summer, but to be honest, it’s like a ghost town! The secretaries and administrators often outnumber the agents!
Having said all this, I still believe those buyers that stay active during the summer can often find a gem of a property if they just stay patient. I have a few friends that were writing their CFA exams during the spring and didn’t want to look at condos. Now, they are ready to move, and rather than do what most buyers do and just start looking when the fall market hits, they are actively searching with me now and looking for that one great condo that hits the market when nobody else is looking!
