Busy 2021 Toronto Real Estate Market
Remember our recent post about how the rising COVID numbers would impact the 2021 Toronto Real Estate market? We said that the market would slow down and that prices would stagnate until the stay-at-home order ends and cases go down. We were wrong. Super, duper wrong. This is one of the busiest markets in recent memory, driven almost exclusively by buyers. As usual, there are far more buyers than there are listings. Couple that with high consumer confidence and low-interest rates and you get a very busy seller’s market. Here’s our advice, if you are a seller and you were thinking of listings your home this spring, you should get it on the market now. We’ve worked in very busy seller markets before and we know that at some point in the year buyers get tired (usually by July). You get the most money for your home when there is the most number of buyers out shopping.
With that said, this is definitely not “business as usual” and we have massively adapted our business to keep both our buyer and seller clients as safe as possible. Here are the measures we are taking:
With our Seller Clients:
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We advise all of our clients to move out of their home for the duration of the listing. We sanitize the home before it is listed on the market and after it sells before sellers move back in.
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We restrict the number of buyers allowed on each showing to only two people plus their agent. Masks and hand sanitizer are mandatory.
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We do not allow double-booked showings so that homes do not get crowded with people.
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We require every agent who shows one of our listings to sign a COVID disclosure form. No one is allowed into our listings if they have even one COVID symptom.
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We invest in excellent virtual tools so that prospective buyers have had a chance to thoroughly review your home prior to entering, thus, hopefully reducing showings to only very interested parties.
With our Buyer Clients:
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We require all of our buyer clients to sign a COVID disclosure form stating that they will notify us immediately if they get COVID. We will cancel any showing if either we or our clients have a COVID symptom.
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We do not drive our clients in our cars anymore.
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We monitor and enforce the use of masks and hand sanitizer
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We keep detailed calendars of every house that we have shown and with whom, in case we need to notify public health of possible COVID exposure.
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We thoroughly vet properties prior to showing them to make sure that we are not taking clients through a home unnecessarily.
Our goal is to keep everyone as safe as possible while also acknowledging that this lockdown is different from the last one. Real estate has not been shut down and buyers are looking for places to call home. It’s time to get your house on the market. Let us know if we can help.
Robyn VanderVennen
The Kim Kehoe Team
