Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Ingram explains that when the Toronto market is as sizzling as it has been in recent years, people are accustomed to properties selling quickly. So if a house or condo has been lingering longer than a couple of weeks, agents often worry that potential buyers will think there’s something wrong with it.
When the new-listings number spikes, Mr. Ingram views that as a sign that agents are trying different strategies and prices. Mr. Ingram explains that some agents will also cancel and relist if they want to reduce the price without tipping off potential buyers, who may see a price cut as a sign of weakness.“It’s a weird game because you could just do a price change,” Mr. Ingram says. He points out, however, that the “days on market” would keep ticking up if the agent simply adjusted the price.Mr.
A more meaningful statistic than new listings, in Mr. Ingram’s opinion, is months of inventory, which estimates how many months it would take to sell active listings at the current pace of sales.But the figure varies significantly in different areas.South of Bloor, for example, months of inventory swells to more than five in some pockets, which makes those areas much more of a buyer’s market, Mr. Ingram points out.