Real Property values are local!!  Market conditions vary from year-to-year, from season-to-season, from price-range to price-range and from one market niche to another.

There’s always a reason for market conditions and many times there are several factors at play – often times conflicting factors that balance or moderate the effect of any one of the market influences.

Buyer’s Market vs. Seller‘s Market is the industry terminology to describe a surplus of (homes for sale (Listing Inventory) or a short supply of homes relative to the demand from potential buyers.

Prices rise when supply is reduced (i.e. upward pressure applied by bidding buyers chasing the “best” of the available supply). Prices stabilize or fall when a diminished number of buyers “pick and choose” among a wide supply in their target market niche.

It is not quite as simple as supply and demand PLUS the annual weather cycle and the school-year timetable, but mostly those are the big factors.

All the other factors (interest rates, supply of mortgage money, availability of  new construction, consumer confidence, immigration, job security, industrial cycles, PLUS national and world-wide monetary-political-economic conditions) are but moderating influences upon peoples' needs/desires to buy and or sell their homes and investment residential properties for their own personal reasons.

Despite the 'local' and 'current' market conditions, certain principles remain true. The most basic fundamental is an understanding of what residential real estate is:

*SHELTER - everybody must live somewhere. Ownership is superior to tenancy.

*COMMUNITY - most people choose to live near others who share their goals and expectations. When you buy, YOU choose your neighbours.

*A LONG TERM INVESTMENT - Vitually every Canadian urban real property purchase will be a wise and prudent investment ... after a twenty-year holding period. Some purchases will pay-off quicker, and some will have bumps along the way, but after 20 years .... almost every buy is a GREAT BUY.

Residential Real Estate (3-unit or less dwelling) is rarely:

*A Speculative Investment - “buy & flip“ only works in the initial phases of an Upturn,

*A Tax Shelter - buying for tax-savings is a short-term strategy guaranteed only to create the intended short-term tax-savings.

Real Estate in the Greater Metro Toronto Area is always going to be a good investment because this is where the jobs are created and therefore where people tend to gravitate. Greater Toronto is the Financial, Social, Entertainment and Transportation Capital of Canada.