They bought a new home, but can’t sell their old one, and in some cases have lost their income. The devastating impact COVID-19 is having on Toronto homebuyers

When Andrea Chiu and Helena Frecker bought an east-end house in early March, they believed they would have no problem selling their two-storey west-end home in time for a May 14 closing.

The couple had planned to list their home near Ossington and Bloor streets around the last week of March. But when news around COVID-19 started building, they decided to speed things up, staging the place and moving to an Airbnb for two weeks to accommodate showings.

The house hit the market on March 23. On March 24, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board and the Ontario Real Estate Association published new protocols strongly discouraging agents from conducting face-to-face business.

Since then there have been two showings and some interest but no offers on Chiu and Frecker's place.

The couple is caught in a cohort of consumers struggling to close on a new home at a time when the real-estate market has effectively stalled, so they can't sell a home they're depending on for financing.

It's a situation that is forcing some sellers to scramble for bridge financing through a potentially protracted period when they are stuck with two properties.

Others worry they are sitting ducks for predatory buyers who recognize that sellers are financially motivated and potentially desperate enough to take less than they had hoped and possibly require.

"The combination of the uncertainty of how long it's going to be, what exactly the financial situation for us is going to look like " I'm hoping and assuming this won't jeopardize the purchase of our new house. I don't think it will, but that's the fear," Frecker said.

Buying a new home before you sell the old one is always risky, say real-estate agents and mortgage brokers.

But in Toronto, where home prices started sizzling at the end of last year and were heading for a white-hot spring, buying first was the norm - often with no financing conditions or other contract language that would give the buyer an out if something went wrong.

That's the situation described by one seller, who didn't want his name published for fear of painting a target on the for-sale sign of his current home.

"Toronto's market was a hyper seller's market up until a few weeks ago. We bought a house, no conditions, and we hadn't sold our house," said the seller, whose business has ground to a standstill as his closing date approaches at the end of May.

"We had the place professionally cleaned, we left it, we went to live with my 75-year-old mother with a different kind of risk, to make it easier for people to see this place - zero showings, zero offers," the stressed-out seller said.

That hasn't changed despite a price adjustment and a new marketing strategy, including a 3D online tour.

His one hope, he says, is that the vendor of their new home hasn't bought and there may be room to negotiate on the closing date.

"The lenders guidelines are the lenders guidelines. Even before all this happened, if you couldn't sell your property you'd be having an issue with the banks," said Jason Georgopoulos of Dominion Lending Centres.

He says banks that are helping clients with deferrals and other job-loss-related situations aren't making exceptions for people whose homes don't sell.

"That's one thing they haven't offered any relief on, but it's not like before they were very lenient and now they've tightened up. It's the same policies it's always been. If you're buying before you sell that's a risk," he said.

Georgopoulos, who works out of a real-estate office, says there are solutions, such as refinancing the original home, renting it out or reducing the price.

Realtor Ravi Singh of Royal LePage Hallmark Realty says people who need to sell to close on a new home have got to change course.

That means "either not selling and finding a way to hold both properties, or drastically changing their listing price to attract the buyer who's a shark in the water, or trying to mitigate damages with a closing they can't complete," he said.

Singh says the situation can be grim for those who are banking on their house selling for what it might have fetched on Feb. 28 or March 3.

"Those people are going to be in real jeopardy. They're not going to get the $950,000. They're also not going to get the $920,000. They might not get the $880,000," he said.

There is no question that sales have fallen off a cliff, says John Pasalis, president of Realosophy in Toronto. Last week, fewer than half the number of homes sold in the Toronto region than during the same period last year, he said.

There will inevitably be predatory buyers, too. But, Pasalis says, there is hope for those who need to sell, and if you've got a house in the $1-million price range in a popular neighbourhood such as the Beach or Leslieville, there is still interest.

The people who do show up to see a listing - and most agents are screening them to ensure the potential buyer is genuinely interested and qualified to buy the property before they can go into a home - are serious buyers.

"They've done their research, they've looked at a virtual tour," he said.

The transactions are also happening faster because agents aren't holding offers for a week.

Some sellers want to get the same price their neighbours got in the heated competition of February.

"You're not getting that price today and it's hard for some sellers to accept that," Pasalis said.

Chiu and Frecker recognize they are more fortunate than some sellers. They still have their jobs. Chiu works in communications and Frecker is a physician. Their move from the west end to the east end was designed to reduce Frecker's commute to the hospital where she works.

"Our problems are significant for us but certainly we are employed and we're healthy and we have a home. We might have two in the near future," Chiu said.

"Any kind of financial stress we're hoping is just going to be short-term. But it's the fact that we don't know at this point," she said.

They are still investigating what the numbers look like if they have to pay two mortgages.

"There's a big difference between, 'OK, everything's going to go back to normal at the end of June,' versus, 'Everything's going to go back to normal in the fall sometime,' " Chiu said.

Element Mortgage Group broker Denise Laframboise always encourages her clients to have a backup plan, whether it's a lawyer who can renegotiate the closing, a co-signer, a gift from parents or potentially switching lenders.

If you can't qualify to carry two properties with a bank, you might look at an alternative lender or a private lender, who will provide a private bridge loan until you can sell one property.

"The sure thing is always to sell first. But it's hard to deal with that when the perfect home you want to buy comes up," she said.

Laframboise says banks and other lenders have some discretion.

"Some of our lenders are saying, 'Absolutely we're going to close on anything we have committed to and signed off on,' " she said.

Others are closing otherwise strong files if the buyer no longer meets income qualifications.

"Our impression is that banks are supposed to help us," Chiu said. "It will come at a cost as it always does. What that cost is and what our mortgage payments look like for the new house will be something that we don't know yet."