A wave of buyer’s remorse is taking shape in several heated real estate markets, after housing prices started dropping and the number of sales slowed over the last two months.
The country experienced a 25.7 per cent drop in the number of homes sold over the last year and a 3.8 per cent slide in housing prices between March and April, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Monday.
The average home price last month totalled $741,517. Such numbers have prompted some sellers to explore lawsuits to ensure transactions move forward and other purchasers to worry about the value of pre-sale properties they bought years ago but have yet to take possession of. Read more: Housing affordability in Ontario has eroded faster than any province amid COVID-19: report “With today’s real estate prices, there’s really no option but to go all in and if you’re going all in, and then suddenly you’re realizing that perhaps you made a bad bet and there’s a way out of that bet, you’re going to do whatever you can to get out,” said Mark Morris, a Toronto real estate lawyer.
In recent weeks, he has seen nine cases where buyers want to back out of deals but on Monday alone was approached by three sellers keen to use legal channels to keep purchasers from walking away.