Updated: Mon Dec. 29 2008 8:01:56 PM

ctvtoronto.ca news

The big question for any Toronto property owner is this: Will my home be worth more or less by this time in 2009?

And for any aspiring property owner, the big question is: Is this the right time to buy -- assuming I think can keep my job through this economic turbulence?

The answer in both cases is: No one knows.

"There is a segment of the Toronto real estate community that is exuding a level of optimism, dictating that the market may pick up again next year and values may pick up again next year," Arun Mehta, president of the Richmond Realty Group, told ctvtoronto.ca.

"My approach is that we are in very uncertain times. ... The first quarter or six months will dictate the severity of this marketplace."

What is known is that Toronto's red-hot real estate market for the first nearly eight years of this decade started turning icy cold in October and November.

Statistics Canada estimated in a report released Dec. 16 that Canadians lost $191 billion in net worth in the third quarter of this year, a period between June 1 and Sept. 30.

Most analysts say the numbers will be even grimmer for the fourth quarter, when the full effects of the brutal stock market meltdown in October -- and declining home prices -- will become known.

That being said, Toronto and GTA house prices, while declining, aren't in collapse.

An average GTA home fetched $368,582 in November, compared to $393,747 one year earlier. The price is still above the 2006 figure of $355,727, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board.

In the first half of December, the board said the average GTA price was $360,652, compared to $404,707 in 2007 and $343,048 in 2006 for that same period.

"Real estate values have receded about 10 to 15 per cent, depending on which part of the city you're in," Mehta said, adding he thinks the 416 prices have a potential for higher volatility than 905 homes.

Other measures the board gives are median price -- a middle value; if you ranked all the homes sold, half the homes sold did so at a price lower than the median, and the others at a higher price (considered less volatile than an average, which can be skewed by a huge sale) -- and year-to-date average.

The median for November 2008 was $312,250 -- compared to $325,000 in November of 2007 and $298,000 in November 2006.

The year-to-date average from January to November is $379,489 compared to $375,445 for the same period in 2007.

Mehta said November sales volumes were the worst in the past six years.

The end of the boom?

Maureen O'Neill, president of the Toronto Real Estate Board, told ctvtoronto.ca in a Dec. 4 interview that 2007 had been a record-breaking year, and came at the end of a decade-long boom.

Mehta noted that in 2007, he had one client bid on a home in Moore Park, located in the Eglinton Avenue and Mount Pleasant Road area, for $100,000 above the list price of $850,000. At least 10 other people submitted offers on the home, which eventually sold for about $400,000 more than the listed price, he said.

"Now, just about a year later, who knows what that property is worth? So the market has turned upside down."

So the market is correcting and prices have fallen. With the bad economic news continuing, one could say that more of the same is probable in the short term.

Toronto has gone through real estate swoons before, most notably in the very early 1990s when a vicious recession struck -- although one big difference is that interest rates are currently at much lower levels.

Mehta tried to put on his optimist's hat for a moment.

There are some cash-rich people who want to get out of renting or to acquire in more desirable neighbourhoods may find some opportunities in 2009, he said.

However, that will depend on how fundamentally confident they feel as consumers, correct?

"There are two buckets of people," Mehta said.

One bucket is full of people who have lost their job or fear they might lose their job, so they aren't prepared to purchase a home. The others are people who are confident in their prospects despite the turmoil, he said.

But if the economy appears likely to remain soft, are you better off waiting to see if prices decline further?

"The problem is, how do you know when (the market) has bottomed out?" Mehta asked. "You cannot predict the best timeframe to purchase a property."

Much of it is buyer intuition and tolerance for risk, he said.

"Now is the time to study the market and to make sure that when you're ready to purchase something in 2009, that you've done your due diligence and you're ready to make that transaction," he said.

"This is a positive time, to a certain degree, for a purchaser -- definitely not for a vendor."

Trying to sell?

Diane Usher, a realtor with Royal LePage, offered some tips to CTV Toronto for trying to sell a home during the holidays.

Less is more when it comes to holiday decorations, she said. Try to keep your home looking its best. There are serious buyers out there; be ready for them.

To that end, she recommends the following:

• Avoid cooking odours
• Keep the house reasonably warm
• Keep the snow cleared
• Keep the seasonal entertaining to a minimum; showings can happen at any time
• Keep the house as bright as possible

"Real estate is a great investment, and it's not a short-term investment," she said. "If the market goes down a little bit after having bought today, it will certainly recover -- more in the short term than the long term."

With a report from CTV Toronto's Dana Levenson