Where are we headed next?

By Shawn Lackie

Hey, if I could answer THAT question, I would be posting all the lottery numbers I think are going to win and see how successful that turned out. I get asked, all the time, just what is going on and what’s next? The simple answer is, let’s wait and see.

I can say, with some certainty, what we have been seeing these past 15 months is more than likely to continue. There are too many intangibles right now: jobs, inflation rate, interest rates, an insane dictator to the south, moderating prices (but we need just a little more moderation, please) and general ennui in the market. It happens. This is not new.

The last real estate crash ran for almost a full decade, from 1989 to 1997. At the time, the Chicken Littles of the world were screaming this is the end. Except it wasn’t. Quite the opposite, things bounced back with a fury. How else can you explain the madness of the last 12 years? There was unprecedented price growth, add in the pandemic and away you go. I'm fairly certain we won’t see the likes of that again. At least not in our lifetime.

So now we are left with the process of, more or less, starting over. House prices still need to come down, salaries need to go up, and cost of living needs to level off. It used to be, you could save and put together enough to buy a starter home, and fix it up with some sweat equity and re-sell for a handsome profit. Then you can take that money and buy up. Wash, rinse and repeat, until you could afford the home to raise your burgeoning family. Somewhere along the way that process got messed up.

There were young people who could afford it and so buy their step 2 or even 3 home, with the help of Baby Boomer parents. So, they basically by-passed that scenario but others couldn’t. House prices bloated and many were left on the sidelines, wondering what just happened, and they are still on the sidelines. That is what needs to change.

The business needs a healthy influx of first-time buyers, to get things moving again. Governments, at all levels, are parroting the need for “affordable housing.” I'm still waiting to see what that looks like. December of 2025, in Scugog, saw only 18 new listings, bringing the active total to 56. There were 13 sales, and the average sale price dipped to $786,240.00, a drop of 5 percent. However, the big number jumping out was from the Months of Inventory, at 4.3 percent, which firmly put this into a buyer’s market. Sellers, who have been steadfastly holding on to the belief their tiny three bedroom bungalow really IS worth over a million, had better wisen up, if they want to sell.

Like the sellers did five years ago, the buyers are now wielding the power and they seem more than happy to wait, until sellers get the message, which could take a while.

There’s also a shakedown coming, for the agents who jumped into the biz, with a get rich quick attitude, over the last 10 years. This could get interesting really fast. A lot of changes are on the way, hopefully for the better, for consumers.

Feel free to check out this story and more on my blog site, at https://slackie14.wixsite.com/buy-sell-and-more