COVID-19 and the Toronto real estate market

In the famous film about the cutthroat real estate market, Glengarry Glen Ross, the A-B-C's of the business were "Always Be Closing." For the past two decades in Toronto's real estate market, those letters could easily stand for "Always Be Climbing," especially when it comes to property prices.

The housing market in the GTA has long been one of the country's hottest, but it has been plunged into uncertainly like it hasn't seen in decades, with the onset of the COVID-19 virus.

For most, buying a home is the single largest purchase we will make in their lifetimes and, like with everything in our society, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the real estate market in a number of ways.

This is usually the time of year when the market really starts to heat up, and there were initially signs that it was going to be another busy season for buyers and sellers. Then the virus hit, and while there are still some homes on the market, it's drastically less than what it usually is. Many people are trying to take a wait-and-see attitude, and then there are others, who don't have a choice and need to find a way to buy or sell a home at this time.

To discuss what's happening right now in real estate, Raju Mudhar speaks to John Pasalis, president or Realosophy, a brokerage that takes a data driven approach to the market, who says, "If you don't need to buy or sell you should be staying home right now."

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