The Toronto Star is reporting that January home sales are down 50% compared to last year. The article cites several reasons, including the fact that last year purchasers were scrambling to complete transactions before the City of Toronto Land Transfer Tax was implemented, thus increasing the number of sales.

Historically, I haven't seen many purchases between January through March. Usually March is when I typically have more people making inquiries about buying or selling a home. In 2007, I remember not having many transactions and getting started into blogging around that time. At that time, many other lawyers felt things were slow and were worried about a downturn. Of course, things picked up in March and didn't slow down until October 2008. If you look at my blog postings, I think it's easy to determine when things were busy and when they were not. The winter season was typically where I saw more mortgages and refinances, probably due to people consolidating their debt from over-spending during the holidays.

Several other lawyers I have spoken to claim that they don't have many transactions lined up for the next few months and that they are expecting it to be slow for a while. I'm in a similar situation, but the way I see it, I now have more time to write. And maybe finish that novel I was working on.

        

 

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