Recently, Toronto's real estate market has become unstoppable and hiking, with property prices skyrocketing, but purchasers have a complete sense of hope. According to the recent research by Move Smartly, a real estate authority in Toronto, the city is displaying early signs of a decrease because very fewer buyers are viewing homes and there has been a drop in the number of bids sellers receive.

"Every week, I meet with my agents to discuss the real-time patterns we're seeing on the ground," said John Pasalis, president of Realosophy, a Toronto real estate agency. "By mid-February, we had all begun to notice early indicators of these tendencies and we believed the market would likely cool down sooner than we had anticipated."

To begin, I'd like to point out that one of the difficulties in addressing early signals of a slowdown is that home buyer and housing analysts alike are frequently perplexed because they rarely perceive any signs of a slowdown. The buyer still bidding on a property against 20 other bidders sees no signs of a downturn, and the housing specialist will not find a single measure in this report that implies things are slowing down.

The first signs of a slowdown are a decrease in the number of buyers viewing homes and a decrease in the number of offers a seller receives on offer night, both of which are trends observed by market participants rather than data.

Another positive trend for purchasers is the rise in the number of homes that don't really sell on offer night. According to the survey, sellers typically advertise their homes well below market value in order to attract more purchasers. This is a tactic that allows a seller to sell their home for 5 to 20% more than the asking price, which is closer to the home's actual market value.

When a home does not sell on the seller's offer night, the seller will often raise the asking price to a level that they are willing to accept (i.e., closer to true market value)," Pasalis explained. According to research, approximately 5% of properties with offer nights failed to sell in February, causing the sellers to raise their asking price.

Buyer weariness, high prices, and rising rates, as well as inflation and future macroeconomic uncertainties, could contribute to a gradual decline in the market, according to Pasalis. Although a few weeks do not constitute a trend, I believe this shift will continue in the months ahead. Buyer fatigue, high prices, rising rates, inflation, and the macroeconomic dangers that lie ahead should all contribute to a gradual market slowdown. Buyers should keep an eye on these trends because they may find themselves buying a property in a highly competitive market only to have to sell their existing home in a much softer market.