What Is The Media Telling Us About The Market?

Opinion

8 minute read

November 11, 2022

Did you watch the election coverage on Tuesday night?

I’m going to hazard a guess that half of you did, and half of you didn’t.

I don’t blame either side.

On the one hand, it’s of incredible importance not just for our neighbours to the south, but essentially for how the world will continue to evolve and take shape moving forward.

On the other hand, it’s really, really difficult to watch a car crash happen in slow motion…

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I elected (no pun intended….) to spend my time elsewhere on Tuesday night.  I think I’ve just grown tired of it all.

The truth is, I didn’t want either party to win.

Tuesday night felt like a referendum on two extremes: the extreme-left and the extreme-right, and I despise both equally.

Whatever happened to the middle?  Can that even exist anymore?

I finally came up for air, er, news, on Wednesday morning, but I was very strategic in how I obtained it.

To get one inherently biased view, I clicked on my CNN app.

To get an opposing and even more biased view, I clicked on my FOX NEWS app.

And then in an attempt to get unbiased, factual, and accurate news on what’s happening (if that’s even possible anymore…) I went to my BNN app.

What does it say about the state of society and news media that to get accurate insights on what’s happening in one country, I have to go to a news app from another?

Some of you have heard this from me before.  It’s not new on my part, and yet I probably won’t ever stop sounding this particular alarm.

Media outlets that are privately owned are operating in seek of profits, as any business enterprise would.  Those outlets will shape their news coverage, stories, and viewpoints toward the demographic that can make them the most profitable.  Easy-peasy.

And the days of obtaining unbiased news coverage from a publicly-owned media outlet are long over, with the CBC being a prime example of what happens when a media outlet is federally funded.

So how in the world does a person obtain accurate news in 2022?

It’s not easy.

And the problem is: it takes work!

Reading one article on a subject from one media outlet is not going to provide you with enough coverage and insight to know what’s happening.

Read six articles from six different media sources – both major media outlets and perhaps some smaller online publications, I think the average person can probably piece together what’s happening.

At least, that’s my view.  And I know many people don’t share it.  Many just can’t bring themselves to believe that this is what we’ve devolved into!

Others don’t have the time or interest, and thus they are going to take the path of least resistance and simply accept a single headline at face value.

Then again, others don’t read at all.  They prefer hearsay to news, because life is busy, and who has the time for unique, individual thought?

Apologies for the cynicism (or realism…) on this otherwise beautiful-day-to-be-alive Friday, but it’s the necessary introduction to today’s blog post. 🙂

Every day in Toronto, there are at least three or four articles written about the real estate market.

Globe & Mail, National Post, Financial Post, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, CTV News, CBC News, Bloomberg, CP24, City TV, Global News, Now Magazine, Toronto Life, MacLeans, BlogTO, Narcity, Toronto Storeys, and on, and on and on.

Some people still subscribe to physical newspapers, some read news articles on their phones, and some click on news stories from Instagram, which often brings you to the BlogTO’s and Toronto Storey’s of the world, and maybe even the Toronto Realty Blog’s too.

With all this news out there, how is the “average” person supposed to understand what’s actually happening in the real estate market?

I honestly don’t know.

So this week, I undertook a lengthy and time-consuming experiment.

I decided to track all news articles about Toronto real estate from November 1st through November 10th.

Then I divided the headlines into three different categories:

Positive
Neutral
Negative

These are subjective, of course.

One might believe a headline reading “Real estate prices increasing” is positive, but “Real estate prices no longer dropping” is not.

I would believe, given today’s market and the sentiments out there, that the latter headline above is positive.

So with that in mind, let me show you what I’ve found over the last ten days, including news publications that are both mainstream and online…

 

Positive:

November 8, Financial Post: “Could The Worst Be Over For Canada’s Biggest Housing Market?”

This is legitamitely the only positive headline I found, and it’s debateable whether this is actually positive.

This is what I was drawing on when I gave you the example above.  But given the current climate, “the worst is over” can be taken as positive.

Not only that, this headline echoes what I wrote in my blog on Monday where I looked at the October TRREB stats and found that we’ve had four flat months in a row and it looks as though there’s stability in the market.

 

 

Neutral:

November 2, CTV News: “Toronto Home Prices Flat In October As Listings Decline Steeply”

I was tempted to label this “positive” since I think that flat prices, given the decline from February to July, are a good thing.  But the headline reads neutral, so be it.

“Listings decline steeply” is an indication of reduced supply, which, if coupled with reduced demand, would result in a flat market.

This is the most accurate headline I saw in the last ten days.

 

November 3, BlogTO: “Toronto Home Prices Are Flattening Out, But Practically Nobody Is Selling”

It’s rare to see anything neutral from BlogTo, as most of their articles are inherently negative.

The idea that “practically nobody is selling” jives with what’s happening in the market, so this is an accurate headline.

Flat prices, listings down.  Sounds a lot like the headline from CTV News the day before…

 

November 7, Toronto Star: “How To Navigate Toronto’s Cooling Housing Market”

Neutral?

Yeah, I think it’s negative in that the market is cooling, but that’s also positive if you’re a buyer.

This is just a self-help article with a lot of fluff, but it’s the headline we’re interested in.

 

November 8, Toronto Star: “Toronto’s Housing Prices Will Continue To Decline, But At A Slower Pace, New Report Predicts”

This is almost positive.  Then again, it’s almost negative.

For what it’s worth, I don’t agree.  Toronto’s home prices are not declining, as per the stats over the last four months.  But if a “report” says so, well, then we have to take that as Godspeak…

 

November 9, Globe & Mai: “Rate Hikes Add A Note Of Hesitation To Real Estate Market”

This is Carolyn Ireland’s regular market round-up which is always accurate since it includes stories and quotes from active agents.

If you want to know what’s happening in the market, Carolyn’s articles are always accurate.

 

 

Negative:

November 1, Toronto Star: “Doug Ford’s New Housing Plan Could Be Bad News For Renters”

I don’t agree with this, but perhaps that comes as no surprise.

The author seems to believe in the “two steps back, two steps forward” mantra of getting ahead with respect to the housing crisis, but he’s also looking at a massive piece of legislation that could pave the way for home building in a way that the province has never seen before, and choosing to dwell on one small part of it.

Well, negativity sells!

 

November 2, Toronto Storeys: “69% Of Canadians Are Stressed Out By Today’s Market”

This is incorrect.

100% of Canadians are stressed out by today’s market.

I have been stressed since the day I got my real estate license nearly two decades ago.

This headline is clickbait and nothing more.

 

November 2, Financial Post: “Home Prices Have Further To Fall, Economists Say”

This is classic reporting on reporting.

An article about somebody else’s views, in this case, an economist who has a bearish outlook.

Expect to see a lot of these.

 

November 3, Better Dwelling: “Toronto Real Estate Prices Down Over A Quarter-Million Dollars, Nearing A ‘Crash'”

This is sexy!

“….down over a quarter million dollars” is sexy.

The word “crash” is sexy.

Expect to see a lot more sexy keywords like this too.

 

November 3, BlogTO: “Developers Want To Delete Entire Toronto Golf Course For Towers And Huge New Park”

This headline sounds negative, right?  “Delete” an “entire” golf course.

But why would this be a bad thing?  It’s a private course, so who cares?

Since when is building housing a bad thing?  And since when is building a “huge new park” a bad thing?

This headline tells me that BlogTO thinks negativity sells.

 

November 3, Narcity: “We Asked 9 People From Toronto How Much They Make A Year & What They Pay In Rent”

This isn’t “news” in the sense of reporting what’s going on, but rather it’s a story written to get eyes.

Er, clicks.

Because that’s how I found it.  After Instagram felt I might want to see it…

 

November 5, Toronto Star: “Developers Are Hitting The Brakes. Pandemic Buyers Are Panicked As Appraisals Come Up Short. Is This The End Of Toronto’s Condo Mania?

This was a long headline, trying to hit many keywords and catch a lot of eyes, but it was actually a really good read.

As a person who has never sold a single pre-construction condominium in his career, I have zero sympathy for people who speculated in a futures market (that’s what pre-con is) and who lost.

It’s gambling, not investing.

 

November 5, Toronto Sun: “Real Estate Market Looking More Like ‘Crash’ Than ‘Correction'”

You don’t need Justin Timberlake here, because the Toronto Sun brought sexy back with the word “crash.”

The definition of a “crash” is its own story, even here on TRB.

 

November 5, BlogTO: “Doug Ford Wants To Ruin Toronto’s Greenbelt And People Are Raging”

More clickbait from BlogTo.

“ruin”

“raging”

Even the words “Doug Ford” have become clickbait.

We could debate the merits of opening up the greenbelt to development, and we’ll never reach a consensus.  So articles like this never solve anything.

 

November 8, CBC News: “Anxiety Spikes Over Housing Amid Canada’s Plan To Welcome 1.5M New Citizens By 2027”

This is inherently negative, but I feel like there’s irony afoot.

Anxiety spikes over this housing plan to welcome 1.5M new citizens but anxiety also spikes over the thought of opposing this and being viewed xenophobic or a bigot.

I have been surprised by the number of people who say what we’re all thinking, notably, “Where are all of these new citizens going to live?”

I don’t think the federal government cares.  That’s 500,000 new votes for them.

 

November 9, BlogTO: “Toronto Street Will Soon Be Choked In Condo Towers”

If we have a housing crisis, and we need to build housing faster than we’ll ever be capable of, then how can streets be “choked in condo towers” like it’s a bad thing?

How come BlogTo goes out of their way to put a negative spin on everything?

 

November 9, BlogTO: “The Average Toronto Resident Spends Over 100 Per Cent Of Their Income On Rent”

This is rather inventive.

The average rent was higher than the average income.

But did anybody out there actually spend more on rent than they received in income?

Another piece of clickbait from BlogTo.

 

November 9, BlogTO: “Developer Wants To Delete A Whole Row Of Toronto Restaurants For A Huge Tower”

Uh-oh.

I think we caught a writer at BlogTo recycling headlines!

“Delete” a whole golf course and “Delete” a row of restaurants.

Imagine how much worse off the city would be with with 250,000+ square feet of office and residential in place of five restaurants in the middle of the “tourist trap” on King Street?

 

November 9, Financial Post: “No, Ottawa, Marxism Won’t Solve Canada’s Rental Housing Crisis”

This sounds negative, right?

But I absolutely loved this column.

Here’s an excerpt:

“This Marxist-style animosity toward the private sector cannot be dismissed as the dusty political fixations of an obscure federal bureaucrat. Rather, the concept that there’s something illegitimate or immoral about entrepreneurs making money in the rental market is gaining ground throughout the machinery of Ottawa.”

Phew!

Is that it?

Maybe I missed a few, but I’ll blame Google for that.

So what’s the conclusion here?

Well, for one, I think BlogTo gets a lot of clicks from negative headlines on borderline news stories, but I think that’s true of any media outlet.

Aside from that, I’d say it’s going to be really tough to find any positive headlines on the real estate market right now, or stories that are bullish in nature.

That’s fine with me.  I understand “If it bleeds, it leads.”

But when this market goes back up – and I said when, what will people be reading?  Because I don’t expect the headlines to reflect a turn-around, at least not until we’re well, well underway.

Final thought here – and this has nothing to do with real estate.

Today is Remembrance Day.

read something the other day (maybe that was my problem…) where an individual said she doesn’t wear a poppy because it “celebrates war.”

While there are some people in our society who choose to be wilfully ignorant and uneducated, the rest of us should remember that 104 years ago today, the most brutal war in history concluded with 20 Million deaths.

We don’t wear the poppy or celebrate Remembrance Day to celebrate war.  We wear the poppy to remember all of those who died in the war, whether it’s those who served and sacrificed, many of whom had no choice, or whether it’s those non-combatants that were casualities as well.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Written By David Fleming

David Fleming is the author of Toronto Realty Blog, founded in 2007. He combined his passion for writing and real estate to create a space for honest information and two-way communication in a complex and dynamic market. David is a licensed Broker and the Broker of Record for Bosley – Toronto Realty Group

Find Out More About David Read More Posts

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9 Comments

    1. Ace Goodheart

      at 6:23 pm

      Will be interesting to see how Toronto fills the 850 mil budget hole.

      Big property tax hikes coming?

      Tory asked the Feds for the cash, but Trudeau is off traveling again, and wherever he lands, he likes to write a big cheque with CDN taxpayers money (just stopped in Cambodia, where he gave away $333 million of our taxes).

      So likely Toronto will not get any Federal cash, as Trudeau likely has many more stops on his tour where he needs to give away more money.

      Will be interesting to see how much property taxes actually have to go up by?

  1. Mxyzptlk

    at 10:59 pm

    Wow, David, do you honestly believe the Democrats are “the extreme left”? Most of them are about as left wing as Doug Ford. Sounds like you’re watching too much (i.e. any) Fox News.

    1. A

      at 10:49 am

      Was just about to make that same comment, geeze!

      Come to think of it, David’s made many references to his political leanings throughout the blog over the years so he probably does consider the Democrats to be far left.

    2. David Fleming

      at 9:40 pm

      @ Myxyzptlk

      No, not at all. That’s not what I said.

      There are extremes on both side and neither is good.

  2. Appraiser

    at 1:45 pm

    I searched high and low and nowhere can I find a main stream publication or media outlet mentioning that TRREB average prices have increased for the past four months in a row (albeit by a miniscule amount).

    You would think that relevant data would be important for other real estate analysts and influencers to convey to the public. At the very least, to display some sort of balance to the current reportage.

    Instead it’s all crash-test dummies, loud prophecies of a killer recession and seemingly cheerful anecdotes about real estate agents going broke.

  3. Ace Goodheart

    at 4:38 pm

    Note re: journalism – recently went through a week of articles as to how “mandatory masking” will be returning to Ontario.

    Scratching my head on that one asking “how”?

    The emergency legislation that enabled that was allowed to expire in April.

    So are they really going to declare another state of emergency, shut down the legislature, and rule by decree, because the common cold is spreading? In November? Like it always does?

    Surely journalists are supposed to understand how Civics works? They spend 3/4 of their time reporting on government after all, don’t they?

    And yet article after article appeared last week. They even did a survey.

    Unreliable, click bait news is now mainstream.

    Blog to: if they do an article on one more house that they have never walked through and are just getting their pics from the MLS listing. Seriously. You can actually walk through these houses. But they don’t. They get pics from the MLS listing and then do a negative spin story on the house (that they have never seen in person).

  4. jerry

    at 7:24 am

    Privately held media organisations are run for profit, just like any other business. These publications will tailor their news coverage, topics, and points of view to appeal to the market segment that will bring in the most money. Easy-peasy.

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