Posted on
August 8, 2025
by
Karli Fortin
The soothe of the rain… the calm after the thunderstorm? It grounds us humans, doesn’t it? And when we’re grounded, we start thinking about our nests, our comfort, and what we want next. Maybe it’s shifting towns, chasing a view, tucking away in a forest, to grow a bigger garden, or finding a home close enough for the kids to walk to school.
Security settles in when we feel grounded, and a good hard rain paired with a thunderstorm is a recipe from the Gods of grounding!
We humans tend to feed off the same cues. When the market stirs, it’s because we all start opening our Realtor.ca apps at the same time… all start feeling that little itch: Maybe I should go look at that cute house I’ve been eyeing. The crispy outer shell of summer steam, the muggy middle air… it’s beginning to fuel us.
So when my pickleball crew says, “Finally, I’m getting busy again”, and it’s only the beginning of August, that’s either a bump toward the shift… or it is the shift.
We’ve been in a lull for over a year now. Not that homes aren’t selling — they are! It’s just meant three showings and then an offer, instead of dozens of showings. Moire price drops. Longer listing wait times. Exhausted sellers pulling their homes off the market to “wait for better days.”
Usually, September is when the market shakes off its cricket-ridden, river-floating August slumber. But this year? “The Great Slow August” started well into July and price drops are drifting down like dandelion puff seeds — bonking nonchalant buyers in the noggin and landing smack in their field of awareness.
Here’s what the hot sheet says in the last 30 days:
288 new listings
107 gone unconditional
190 SOLD
232 price drops
25 price increases (don’t get too excited — most are just tactics to revive a forgotten listing “bump up a littel… bump down a bit”)
Buyers — this is your time to go fishing. Toss out some offers. See what bites. The water’s teeming with deals.
Sellers — the smart ones are pricing sharp and getting scooped up before the September rush hits. Being forgotten in the haze of houses, is a recipe for less money in the long run and a term called “chasing the market” -money tossing and not a fun game.
Right now it’s like Christmas in the summer, and your mortgage broker is Santa, leaning in with a grin: “Honey, what would you like for Christmas?” And us Realtors are your little Elves, holding your hand, yipeeing along beside you.
