Well folks, I think I’m shuttin’ ‘er down for the year.

I can’t believe we’re about to enter the sixth calendar year of Toronto Realty Blog…

I know, I know – it was a slow week for TRB.

Many of you were running around your cubicles in circles, unsure of what to do without your morning fix of TRB insanity.  Next time – just go straight to Huffington Post.  It’s slightly more reliable, and a lot less cynical…

This week was my best friend’s wedding, and yes, I said “week.”  It’s amazing how much time those darned things take up!

And I got “rehearsal” confused with “dress rehearsal” like from when we were kids – rehearsing the Christmas Concert.  So didn’t I show up for the rehearsal last night dressed in a TUX!!?!

It was about 98-degrees in the room where Pam & Galen were getting married, and I could feel the beads of sweat dripping down my calf.  I know all guys sweat when they get up to the altar, but I always thought that saying referenced the groom and not his merry band of groomsmen!

They didn’t have a rabbi or a priest, but rather a judge to lead the ceremony, and the whole room chuckled when she allowed for a pronounced pause after “If any persons in this room know of a reason why these two should not be wed…”  I thought they only do that in the movies!  I was waiting for Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon, or some other B-list actor to run into the room, completely frazzled, and confess his love for Pam…..or, I suppose, Galen…

It was a beautiful wedding, and my best friend is with an amazing girl.  And I know she’ll continue to let us golf every Sunday…

What a fantastic way to ring out the year!

I think many of you know how slow real estate is in December – especially those of my readers who are also my clients!

I feel as though this fall was especially slow, maybe just because of what a great spring market we had.  Then there are those people who disagree, and point to statistics that show what an incredible fall we had!  It just goes to show you that the “feeling” and the reality can be very different, and my experience this fall was that there was a serious lack of quality product on the market.

I think that 2012 is going to start out with a boom, not so much with respect to price but rather to volume.  We didn’t see as many quality listings in late 2011 as we expected, so we simply must assume that this will change in 2012.

The weather outside is quite mild, and if it stays this way into January, I think we’ll have some great open house weather, and the housing market in family-oriented areas might pick up sooner than usual.

In my upcoming article in The Grid, I make five predictions for 2012, and one of them is that I don’t expect a double-digit percentage increase in prices in Toronto real estate.  My colleagues might kill me for saying that, but the November 2011 prices were 10% higher than November 2010, and I don’t see that continuing.  Could we see a year of 1-3% growth?  Some of my blog readers (especially “AndSoItIsWritten”) are predicting impending doom.

If Garth Turner can be wrong for five years in a row, maybe others can be as well.

I don’t fashion myself a “salesperson” before a Realtor, so I’m not going to simply predict another boom year when I don’t see it happening.

So buyers and sellers will have to make their decisions accordingly.  A year of stagnant growth isn’t the worst thing in the world.  It will let new buyers into the market, and allow for some stubborn sellers to finally cut the umbilical cord.

2012 will mark the sixth calendar year of Toronto Realty Blog, and I’m quite proud of that.

What started as a hobby has now turned into the #1 real estate blog in Toronto, and it’s the primary source of my business.

But what I enjoy most about this blog is the fact that thousands of people who are not my clients read this blog every day; some who post comments in agreement, and others who rip me to shreds.

Those who read my blog on a regular basis know that once a month, I’ll post something controversial simply to stimulate conversation or as some put it – to antagonize people.  You have to admit – if 100.00% of the people who read this blog agreed with everything I said, then there would be no point in reading any of it…

I’d like to thank my 100,000 monthly readers for their continued support (or hatred…), and special thanks to all those people who post comments on a regular basis.  Believe it or not, there are still those readers who skip right to the comments section and don’t even read the blog posts themselves, so in a roundabout way, it’s the people who comment that are actually writing some of these blogs!

I hope you all get some much-needed time off in the next week or so, and that we’re all rejuvenated for 2012.

I mean, the world is supposed to end on December 21st, 2012, so shouldn’t we all ring in the new year like it’s 1999 in Prince‘s world?

Happy Holidays, everybody.

David.