Iced

“I thought of you,” said one of our blog dog addicts last night, “when I unexpectedly received the following text message this evening from the listing agent that sold my house in June of 2024.”

Now, not everyone makes friends with their realtor, who keeps in touch for two years… but we already know that normal people do not come to this site. Here’s the update…

“Hi, hope you both are doing awesome! It’s been a while but I just wanted to share this with you .. just for interest sakes lol. I’m so happy for you guys that you did what you did when you did! We had offer night tonight and offers are coming in hundreds of thousands below your sale price. Not so happy for them but they can wait… and really happy for you! ”

The response from our guy: “When we bought that house, it was at the tail end of a rising market (1989). About a year later, the Toronto real estate market crashed, and stayed down for 13 years. I didn’t care because I never paid any attention to it – we raised the family there for 35 years. It was pure luck that we left when we did.”

So has luck finally run out for people who put most of their net worth into one asset, or swallowed big debt to get it, and now see values tanking? Do we stick a fork in residential real estate? Or is this just another 1989-style plop which will trough, languish a while, then be erased by the next wave of FOMO?

Here’s the latest.

Across Canada house sales tumbled more than 16% last month compared to last January, and were off about 6% from the month before. Inventory was up. Prices were down. It was a realtor disaster while spanking sellers who refused to slash their asks.

The real estate cartel blamed the weather. It sucked in much of the nation. But the January drought was consistent with what we saw in 2025 – no spring market. No autumn selling season. Steadily fading assessments.

The average home in our Dominion is now listed at $652,941 – which is the lowest level in five years, since the pandemic. And in Toronto some condos have been trading at less than $400,000, which has not happened since people ripped off their Covid masks.

Despite that, realtors ain’t giving up. Things will get better this year, they say. Honest. We really mean it this time.

“Notwithstanding the chilly start to the year, we continue to expect 2026 will ultimately be defined by pent-up demand from first-time buyers finally seeing a chance to enter the market,” says CREA economist Shaun Cathcart. His group is boldly forecasting that 491,512 houses will sell in Canada this year – a 5% bump – while the average price will swell to $698,881 (a gain of almost 3%).

So, is there ‘pent-up demand’ after almost four years of lousy sales during which there was not one single decent, hormonal, house-lusty spring rutting season?

The new-house builders and sellers say, not a chance. Never in the recorded history of that industry have things been this bleak. And it continues. We just learned housing starts also faded in January, down 15% month/month, according to CMHC. That takes the annualized rate of construction down to 238,000 units. At this pace it will take until 2038 to build the number of new homes the feds promised to deliver four years from now.

Lately we told you about the black hole where homebuilding in the GTA used to be, and where there’s no optimism yet.

“New home sales in December 2025 reached an all-time low, bringing a fitting close to 2025,” says the industry. “Never in the 45 years that new home sales data have been collected for the GTA have we seen just 5,300 sales for an entire year. Meanwhile, 2026 is likely to see geopolitical concerns linger, prices remain elevated and the Bank of Canada has indicated the cycle of interest rate cuts has ended – thus the main drivers of buyer hesitancy are expected to drag on well into the year.”

Logic says this is a buying opportunity, of course. Prices are down by a quarter. Sellers are pliant and pressured. Financing costs have dropped by about 24% in a year. Mortgages are plentiful at 3.5%. There is a ton of inventory to choose from. Conditional offers are back. Bidding wars, competition and blind auctions are out. There’s probably a housing shortage coming since building has stopped. Add it all up. Buyers rule.

But emotion says otherwise. What if prices keep dropping? What if we have a recession? What if you lose your job? And why aren’t other people jumping in? What do they know?

It’s a human thing. We’ve spelled it out often. When stuff goes up, people crave it. When prices and sales fall, folks run. We buy high. We sell low. Sometimes we get lucky.

But luck is not a strategy.

About the picture: “Hello from La Tania, Courchevel, France, where dogs are welcome and loved everywhere including pubs,” writes Roger. “This is Buddy the Ski Lodge dog looking for a morning handout.   B&D portfolio is enabling the season long ski bum lifestyle in the largest ski resort in the world.  Back home to Canada in the spring when the snow disappears.  Thanks for everything you do.”

To be in touch or send a picture of your beast, email to ‘garth@garth.ca’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2026/02/18/iced-2/