When is the best time to buy a house in Toronto?
There are two answers to this question.
The first answer is it depends on your situation. It depends when you want to move, if the kids have to go to a new school, are you moving out of town or a different neighborhood. That depends on your circumstances.
If you're buying an investment property, then you have a little bit more flexibility because you're not going to live there, so you can technically buy whenever is appropriate for you.
The second answer is middle of December, and here's why. Put yourself in the seller's shoes. If you're a seller, you have to be highly motivated for you to get your house ready, clean, staged, and put on the market in December when people are thinking about their Christmas holidays, the New Year's Eve parties, and just finishing up work and school.
On the flip side, from a buyer's perspective, a lot of buyers are sitting on the sidelines, they've shut it down until the New Year. Again, they're thinking about the holidays and they're not looking in the marketplace.
That time frame, the middle of December, is a great time from a buyer's perspective because you have less competition from the buyer's side, and also you're dealing with a highly motivated seller who wants to sell their house.
From a seller's perspective, if an offer is presented let's say middle of December and they do not take it, then realistically they're going to have to wait until the middle of January because after that second week of December, things are just going to cool off and shut down through the Christmas break and then it takes about 7 to 10 days for the market to pick up after the New Year, which puts that seller into the middle of January time frame for them to entertain possible offers. Technically, the sellers can lose a month between the middle of December until the middle of January for them to possibly sell their house.
On a side note, I've personally picked up two of my investment properties in December because there are less buyers out there and sellers were highly motivated to sell their homes.