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🗞️ Rest of the News
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GTA Sellers Left Before The Buyers Did
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TRREB released July figures on August 6, and the reflex reading is a deepening correction. The average price fell $54,972 in a single month, from $1,058,928 in June to $1,003,956 — down 4.5 per cent year over year, with the MLS Home Price Index composite benchmark at $934,600, off 4.6 per cent. Look at the supply side instead. Sales came in at 5,995, down just 0.9 per cent. New listings dropped 17.8 per cent to 14,484, and active listings fell 12.1 per cent to 26,098. The tightening came from sellers walking away, not buyers walking in. That distinction has limits worth stating plainly. TRREB's sales-to-new-listings ratio sits at 37.1 per cent and months of inventory at 4.6 — both twelve-month trend measures, both still firmly buyer's-market territory. Properties took 45 days to sell against 40 a year ago, and the average sale closed at 97 per cent of asking. Detached carried the decline: 905 detached averaged $1,207,295 across 2,098 transactions, against $1,547,928 on 691 sales in the 416. TRREB President Daniel Steinfeld put it as sales claiming a larger share of a shrinking listing pool, with less room to negotiate ahead if the trend holds. Why it matters: A falling benchmark is not the same thing as buyer leverage when the owners setting it can simply withdraw. Price to July closings and to the inventory actually competing this month — a seller anchored on a spring number will collect days on market, then cut anyway. But do not oversell the turn either: at 4.6 months, buyers still hold the hand. |
DLC Buys Filogix — And Both Submission Rails
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Dominion Lending Centres Group acquired Filogix from Finastra Holdings on August 4 for $58.5 million in cash. Filogix runs Expert, Expert Plus and FXLink, connecting more than 8,000 brokers to roughly 350 lenders, and processed approximately $60 billion in funded volume in the twelve months to May 31. DLC expects $15 to $18 million in adjusted EBITDA in year one. Filogix will operate as a standalone subsidiary, kept operationally separate from Newton Connectivity Systems and its Velocity platform. CEO Gary Mauris says it will continue serving brokers across competing networks. Why it matters: For the first time, one publicly traded company holds both dominant deal-submission networks in Canadian mortgage brokering. The operational separation is a commitment, not a structure — and others in the mortgage technology sector have flagged the competition question as one to watch. If you submit through either rail, your workflow now runs on a competitor's parent's infrastructure. |
Vancouver Gave Back June In A Single Month
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Greater Vancouver Realtors reported July figures last week: 2,061 residential sales, down 9.8 per cent from July 2025 and 18.6 per cent below the ten-year seasonal average. That erased June's near-ten-per-cent gain outright. Apartment sales led the decline at roughly 18 per cent; detached fell only 3.2 per cent, to 639. The composite benchmark landed at $1,088,800, down 6.2 per cent year over year. Chief economist Andrew Lis described the multi-year pattern as one step forward, one step back. Why it matters: Ontario and BC moved in opposite directions in the same month — GTA listings contracting into steady demand, Metro Vancouver demand retreating into softer prices. When a client forwards you a national headline this fall, it is worth knowing which market wrote it. Apartments are the one shared weakness, and they are worse out west. |
The Buyer Love Letter Is Officially Retired
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Canadian agents report that personal letters from buyers to sellers have largely disappeared, a casualty of a market where competing offers are rare. One listing agent's framing: sellers wait for the better price, not the better story, and a heartfelt note does not close a meaningful gap. Why it matters: Good riddance. Buyer letters were always a human rights liability dressed as a sentimental gesture, volunteering family status, national origin and other protected grounds that no seller should be weighing in an offer decision. The market has now done what compliance guidance could not. If a client raises it, the answer is that it does not move price and does create exposure. |
Regional Spotlight: OTTAWA
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Flat sales and a market splitting by property type The Ottawa Real Estate Board reported 1,325 residential sales in July, up 0.2 per cent from July 2025 — flat, which counts as a win this summer. The composition is where it gets interesting. Single-family sales rose 5.0 per cent to 714 transactions, while townhouses fell 4.1 per cent to 417 and apartments fell 6.6 per cent to 169. Year-to-date sales of 8,288 remain 5.2 per cent behind last year, but that gap narrowed from 6.1 per cent at the end of June. Year-to-date dollar volume sits near $5.8 billion, down 5.6 per cent. Run those last two figures against each other and something useful falls out. Year-to-date dollar volume is down 5.6 per cent on sales down 5.2 per cent, which puts Ottawa's average price for the year almost exactly where it sat in 2025. The board also noted the market retained considerably more of its spring activity than it typically does in the June-to-July handoff, and titled the release around new listings easing. Flat sales and contracting supply are a different combination than flat sales alone. Why it matters For realtors: Ottawa is not moving in one direction. Freehold is up, attached and apartment are down, and a market-wide "sales are flat" line will mislead a seller in either segment. Quote the property type, not the board total. For mortgage brokers: Single-family strength against apartment weakness changes which files clear appraisal cleanly. The condo side of Ottawa carries the same valuation risk the GTA condo market does, at a smaller scale.
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