Things we are putting on our Christmas list….Warmer shoes, a better shovel and more listings. It comes as no surprise that on the eve of the holiday season Toronto got its first dusting of snow which not only signals the traditional listing slowdown, but throws us even harder into traffic chaos. Well, at least we aren’t in Buffalo.

So what’s cooking in the freehold sector? Well, listings are down by 16% over the previous month and sales are down by as much as 67%. Our agents report that open house traffic has remained relatively strong over the last few weeks but its’ obvious that the snow really takes the wind out of buyer’s sails. “Days on market”, one of the key indicators of our market, have been getting longer but still over 45% of sales happened at or above the list price.

The condominium market has seen only a minor drop in new listings (8.3%) yet witnessed nearly half as many sales as a month ago. While sales in the east and west have held their ground the bulk of that decline has occurred in the central core. Even with such a large decline in sales we are encouraged to report that 20% of condo sales this week have been in multiple offer scenarios. It is interesting to point out that condo sales above $1.5M were negligible this week but this price segment has close ties to the freehold sector so we believe that sales will improve as overall freehold market gathers steam in the new year.