We call it “March Break” in Canada, and a quick search on Google Images for the term “Spring Break” versus that of “March Break” will clearly denote the differences…

Either way, this time of year represents a slowdown in real estate, and the ripple can be felt through the whole industry.

Oh yeah, FYI – I’m the guy at the back right here:

When I was seventeen-years-old, having my driver’s license for all of one year, I got in the car with two friends and drove to Florida for March Break.  My buddies and I drove from town to town watching Major League Baseball’s spring training games, while the rest of the state was drinking Corona on beaches and engaged in complete debauchery.

Oh what a naive, innocent young lad I was!

“March Break” meant “Baseball” to me, meanwhile to a legion of American college students and Canadians that were well-versed in unnoficial class trips to Cancun, it meant “rampant promiscuity” and “guar-an-teed s-t-d’s!”

If only my parents had instilled fewer values and tried to quash my ambitions and entrepreneurial spirit, perhaps it could have been different…

Now, in my current lifestyle and line of work (they are truly one and the same), “March Break” has come to mean “Slow Down” in the industry which I call home.

In fact, the month of March might seem even slower than December to many real estate agents, as well as their buyers and sellers.

The spring market actually consists of two smaller markets: pre-March, and post-March.

January is a slow month, and thus February and the first half of March are very busy times.  The buyers and sellers who are active in these six weeks are the ones who either didn’t take care of business last year, or are trying to get the jump on those that are “waiting for the good weather.”

The second part of the spring market comes after March break.

And the time in between sees many neighborhoods in the city become completely inactive.

It’s somewhat of a circle game, you see.  The Toronto District School Board is on March Break from the 16th to the 20th, but for all intents and purposes, it really starts at 4PM on March 13th, and ends at 10PM on March 22nd.

Most of the private schools are actually out for two weeks; call it March 6th until March 22nd.

Now not everybody who is looking to buy or sell real estate has children, but many do.

More specifically, it is the housing market that slows to crawl during the month of March, since far more home-owners have children than condo-owners.  Would it be fair to say that a majority of home-owners in the Central core have children?

You can see where I’m going with this, right?  The ripple effect starts with March Break itself – parents either look after their idle children, or perhaps choose this time to take family vacations.  Those looking to buy, put their search on hold, and those thinking about selling will undoubtedly hold off until after March Break.

Now take the ripple effect a step further to the real estate agents themselves!

I know for a fact that many of the busier agents in my office are taking March Break off since they figure that buyers and sellers are too.  It’s a circle-game, really.

If you’re a busy real estate agent, what better time to take off then when the market is slow?

So combine the buyers, sellers, and real estate agents who all take time off around March Break, and the month is a dead-time for real estate in some areas of the city.

But wait – there’s more!  What about Easter?  That’s a four-day-vacation in itself!

Good Friday falls on April 10th this year, so for all those would-be-sellers who put their plans on hold until after March 22nd, perhaps waiting another two weeks seems like a good idea.

Oh, and we can’t forget Passover, which starts on April 9th this year.

So what starts with Spring Break on March 6th might actually be drawn out until mid-April!

And this is the “lull” in between the two periods of the busy spring real estate market.

The reality is, even though there is some activity from March 6th to April 14th, the market isn’t operating at full speed, and neither are its participants.

If you’re a seller, you might decide that anything less than one-hundred-percent isn’t worth the time and effort, and you will therefore wait until April to list your home for sale.

And as a result, many buyers hold off as well.

However, the condominium market seems to be relatively unfazed by the Spring Break effect, and it continues on like the juggernaut that it is.

Although try telling that to all of my “patient” buyer-clients who are anxiously awaiting new product to come out onto the market.  Oh, you may say that there is a “glut” of inventory, but that consider that this inventory is product that comes off an automated assembly line as opposed to that which is hand-made.

Timing is everything in real estate, and I can’t help but wonder when all the “good” condo listings are coming out.

As for the house listings, I know they won’t be out until April…