I am still not seeing many listings coming on to the market.

It has been a busier first 3 weeks of January 2013 when compared to the first 3 weeks of January 2012. I think spring, which IMO starts every year around late February (not April) will be quite busy this year as sellers realize or perceive that the value of their home may be at a peak, looking forward to potentially plateauing values of the next 1-2 years.

We find it slow..... Lots of inventory for buyers!

Some buyers may not wait to find a house, regardless if it's a Spring market or not. It's different than selling.  If the right house with the right price comes up even in the dead of winter, then they will try an offer. Our office is experiencing an average number of transactions normal for January, but I am getting a lot of inquiries from move-up buyers ready to be active in the market in a few weeks time.

From Brad Lamb:

"Overall, 2011 and 2012 will bevery similar in total sales. Themain observation for 2012was a spring surge and anautumn fall-off. Why did thishappen? The Federal government changed theCMHC high ratio amortizationrate from 30 to 25 years and raised the down paymentrequirement for $1.0 million+properties from 5% to 20%.This motivated first-timebuyers and $1.0M+ buyers tobeat the legislative change and buy in the spring. Thisexcess volume of springbuyers created a reduction in autumn buyers. Based on theMLS data above, 2012 will bethe fourth best year in the history of Toronto MLS, aclear sign that prices are notcorrecting into a bubble-styleof collapse."

And, I loved this section:

"For a strange reason, many individuals in Toronto seem to long for a biblical-stylecondominium meltdown.Condominiums are the punching bag of housing andof the economy; despite beingsingle-handedly responsible for the resurgence of Toronto,and its main sponsor as agreat world city. This odd viewpoint is probably mostlydue to the condominium’sawesome success as a housing choice in Toronto. I cannottell you how many times Ihave been asked, “Who isgoing to live in all of these condominiums?” The answerto that question is, “the majority of home buyers.”"  

I like this comment from @theBRELteam @ Bosley in their newsletter:

"Well, it seems spring comes earlier every year, at least for real estate. Is January the new March?"

@Matthew Slutsky I also like watching what @Lamb Development Corp. has to say. Here is a video of Brad on CTV.

http://youtu.be/9QaYETpdMds

 

I am getting mixed reports on the state of the re-sale market in Toronto.

Some people are saying "Bidding wars are back!" ----> http://www.getwhatyouwant.ca/2013/02/28/theyre-baaaack-bidding-wars-in-toronto/ / @theBRELteam at Sage

Others are saying to be carefully on that mentality ----> http://josiestern.com/featured/2013/02/who-rules-real-estate-market-in-2013/ / @Josie Stern

What are other's seeing?? Any words of wisdom from @Andrew LaFleur, @Brad Sage , @mark savel , @Condo Chris , @Condo Chicks?

I think it's important to note the date of the blogs - Josie references January1 to Feb 15, and our blog references Feb 14- Feb 28. I would have 100% agreed with Josie for the period of time she was writing about - but the last 2 weeks have changed dramatically. Last weekend, I spoke to 100+ buyers at an open house - and they were repeating the same tales of woe we heard last year (five bidding wars lost, nothing on the market, they are ready to buy NOW). I've sold 4 properties this week - 3 of them in bidding wars. I think the spring market is here.

I agree with you @theBRELteam at Sage but I also caution agents and the media saying "bidding wars are back"as a universal headline because it is still only happening about 25% of the time even today unlike 50% of the time last spring. Sellers can get cocky reading these headlines and buyers are still much more level headed than they were in the spring of 2012. My blog cautions sellers about misreading the buyer at the seller’s own peril. For example we had a situation just this week whereby we were considering offers on Monday and an agent registered an offer the previous Thursday. By Monday that buyer had withdrawn his offer. Luckily we had two offers anyway. The majority of properties are not getting multiple offers today and these sellers have to be cautious about:

1. Setting offer dates because buyers can change their mind during the waiting period
2. Rejecting first offers because there may not be a better one around the corner just because “bidding wars are back”
3. Sellers signing the only offer they have above the list price which can backfire and which I know just happened to an agent just because “bidding wars are back”
4. Buyers who use the inspection condition to walk away from properties that do not have a pre-list home inspection
5. Sellers that list too low to generate a bidding war because buyers are not bidding as high as they did last spring.This may result in the property under selling.

These mishaps happen even in a hot seller’s market. I am just cautioning against sellers believing the market is theirs to control because it is not necessarily. In actual fact the market is local in nature and responds differently depending on which part of the city we are referring to. In my opinion the market is, at this time, very active and healthy skewed, to a degree, in favor of sellers.

Feb 14-Feb 28 in C1, E1 and W1 - 60 house sales, 8 at asking, 20 under asking and 32 over asking - so it's actually over 53% above asking.

@thebrelteam Regardless of statistics, my blog is merely cautioning a return to the seller “hot market mentality” which applies whether we have 25% of properies that sell above list or whether we have 50%. You and I, I'm sure, can agree that some sellers can get themselves into trouble believing the market is hot universally. Some sellers got themselves into trouble last year with the "hot market" mentality and they will do so again this year. And we both know the market can change at the drop of a hat either because of higher supply or because - the big guy is watching very closely (federal government).