Alright, let me set the scene here folks, because things are moving quickly…
It’s currently 1:45pm on Tuesday afternoon and I’ve received not one, not two, but three phone calls on my condominium listings.
Who says the condo market is slow, right?
The first agent said, “Hey, I’m showing four units in the building and I’ve mixed up all the keys. Do you remember if your key has a FOB attached? That would help me narrow it down.”
Alright.
The second agent said, “Any chance you’re having an open house this weekend? I work out of Niagara On The Lake and I don’t really want to drive in to show the condo to my clients, if I don’t have to.”
Sure.
The third agent said, “I just showed your condo listing and it’s not what my client is looking for, but she fell in love with that dining table and chairs. May I ask you where your client purchased it?”
Of course.
If that doesn’t sum up the current state of the condo market, then I don’t know what does.
Don’t get me wrong, we’ve sold many of our condo listings this year, while others remain on the market. But the quality of the conversations that we’re having with agents is at an all-time low.
Or maybe the quality of agents themselves out there is the problem?
About two weeks ago, I received an email from a buyer agent who showed one of my listings. He had some questions about the fitness studio located in the commercial portion of the condominium (ie. a separate business…) and so I told him I would get back to him with answers.
I reached out to the property manager and to my client, both of whom responded, and it turns out that the condominium corporation has a deal with the fitness club that allows a 12-month membership for free, one per unit, with additional memberships discounted by 50%.
I emailed this to the buyer agent and he called me immediately.
He was laughing.
Laughing in a good way, however.
“David, I’ll be honest: I showed five condos in the building on the weekend and I emailed all five listing agents about the gym. You’re the only person who wrote me back.”
He went quiet after that, unfortunately. I was hoping we might see an offer!
Six or seven days later, I called him and said, “What’s going on? Have your clients bought? Are they still interested?”
He told me, “They’re interested, but they want to offer something really low. I’ve had this conversation with other listing agents, and everybody’s like ‘don’t bother, don’t bother,’ so I just figured you’d be the same.
Really?
What type of listing agent tells a buyer agent not to make an offer?
I told him, “Any offer you submit will be well-received and I’m happy to work with you.”
The next day, he submitted an offer. It was low, no doubt about it, but it was an offer nonetheless. My client’s condo had now been listed for over seventy days and we had already reduced the price, so despite the low offer, he was happy to have something in writing.
It took four days and six sign-backs, but eventually, we got a deal done.
I wonder what all those agents saying, “Don’t bother, don’t bother” are doing with their listings now?
There are some really awful character traits and emotions dominating this cooling condo market right now, and the worst of them are apparent from the moment the listing agent answers his or her phone:
-Delusion
-Ego
-Entitlement
-Naivety
-Aggression
I don’t understand it.
The goal is to sell the condo. The job is to work for your client.
And yet so many of these listing agents are acting like it’s 2022 and they’re being overwhelmed with showings.
With the first-quarter of 2025 now behind us, let’s take a look at the GTA condo market, which we know is slow, but it’s time we put some data to the “feelings” out there…
First up, let’s check in on the number of listings:
New listings were up 33% in January, 6% in February, and 23% in March.
Overall, through Q1, new listings were up by 20.1% over the same period in 2024.
This could be much ado about nothing, provided sales reflect the same increasing trend. But as most of you already know, sales are actually declining.
It’s worth noting that those sales figures for each of January, February, and March are higher than any of 2021, 2022, 2023, or 2024.
Graphically, January obviously stands out, but February remains at least somewhat in line:
As for the 905, the data is a little more striking:
New listings were up 63% in January, 11% in February, and 39% in March.
Overall, through Q1, new listings were up by 36.0% over the same period in 2024.
That’s very different from the 416 data!
And unlike the 416 chart, which showed the data somewhat in line with prior years, the 905 chart shows us that 2025 is looking like a true outlier:
As I mentioned above, it’s fine to see new listings increase so long as sales increase around the same pace.
Failing that, the absorption rate falls, and theoretically, so too should prices.
Having said that, sales did not move in tandem with new listings. In fact, sales declined:
Sales were down 15% in January, 18% in February, and 22% in March, and while I’m no genius, that feels like a “trend” to me.
For the entire first quarter, those 2,504 sales are 18.8% lower than the 3,083 sales recorded in January, February, and March of 2024.
In the 905, the data showed a market that’s slowed at a much greater rate:
While the year-over-year decline in sales was only 8% in January, it rose astronomically to 31% in February, before finishing down 27% in March.
For the entire first quarter, those 1,286 sales are 23.5% lower than the 1,680 sales recorded in January, February, and March of 2024.
For those playing along at home, let’s do a quick catch-up with the year-over-year data for Q1:
416 listings: up 20.1%
416 sales: down 18.8%
905 listings: up 36.0%
905 sales: down 23.5%
That’s going to affect the sales-to-new-listings ratio, right?
Here’s how the 416 looks:
An average absorption rate of 27.4% through the first three months does not inspire confidence in the condo market, however, this doesn’t take into account the massive number of re-listings, since TRREB stopped publicly sharing that data in the fall of 2024.
A picture paints a thousand words, so here’s the chart:
Last year at this time, we were talking about how our “yellow line” was trailing prior years.
Now in 2025, our “green line” is even lower on the chart.
While the absorption rate in the condo market was higher in the 905 in 2024 than in the 416 (an average of 39.3% versus an average of 36.3%), the opposite is true this year:
We’ve seen an average of 27.4% in the 416 and an average of 26.2% in the 905.
Either way, our “green line” is going to be well below the rest in the 905 too…
Make no mistake, condo listings are selling.
They’re just taking longer to sell.
“Sixty days is the new thirty days,” as I told a client last week.
But try this on for size:
The average 416 condo price is only down 1.8%, year-over-year, in the month of March, and it was only down 0.3%, year-over-year, in the month of February.
With an absorption rate nearing one-quarter, you would expect to see a monumental decline, no?
This is the same argument that I made in Monday’s blog post and it speaks to the resiliency of the condo market.
Times are tough out there and I would point to the following five factors:
1) Sales are down
2) Listings are up
3) Re-listings are rampant
4) Sellers aren’t being realistic
5) Listing agents have no idea how to work in this market, act like it’s 2022, and get aggressive on the phone.
The last one sticks out for a reason, and not only because it’s the longest. This one is a major hurdle in the market and it’s a major reason why more units aren’t selling.
If you’re a seller in this market, now isn’t the time to hire the one-off agent, the cousin, the out-of-towner, the discount guy, or the like.
And in case you simply can’t get enough stats, I’ll be back here on Monday to talk about the rental market statistics for Q1.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
