Real Estate Manipulation

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Thanks for clicking. It could be the right time to jump into the real estate market as home buyers flood in off the sidelines. This according to CP24 and its expert, a realtor.

[00:00:09]>> So far, for many that remain on the sidelines, the timing is almost right to jump into the market.

[00:00:15]>> Well, maybe not necessarily a realtor.

[00:00:16]That's Jason Mercer, chief information officer from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, former chief market analyst of the real estate board, but his specialty evidently is understanding buyer behavior. Buyers who had been on the sidelines moved to the sidelines.

[00:00:31]People coming off the sidelines and home buyers that moved to the sidelines.

[00:00:34]>> You have been on the sidelines for the sidelines.

[00:00:39]>> That bottom clip is from 2022 when Mercer just as he is now predicted a return of buyers from off of the sidelines.

[00:00:47]>> We've started to see uh some support for price really since the summer.

[00:00:51]>> We need the best. That's why you're here. So, what I want to do today is go over CP24's infomercial with the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board. Take a look at these hypothetical home buyers just sitting on the sidelines and then discuss some economics. Look, as regular viewers will know and as we'll demonstrate today, Canadian media doesn't report on the housing industry.

[00:01:10]It's a marketing arm for it. We will obviously continue to try to separate the data from the narrative on this channel. Make sure you click like and subscribe if you want to get those updates. But for now, let's get into this interview.

[00:01:27]onto the interview where CP24 started off with a leading softball question.

[00:01:32]>> What do you make of this bit of a bounce in the market?

[00:01:34]>> On that, right away, as we went over on this channel, here are the sales in April 26. Here are the sales in April 25. Home sales are up 6% from last year, and last year was a 20% drop from the year prior. Not exactly a great bounce back. We're starting to see some buyers who had been on the sidelines really over the last couple of years moving back into the marketplace, taking advantage of lower home prices and also lower borrowing costs. Ah, buyers jumped into the market in April because borrowing costs were lower. Well, he must be talking about fixed rate costs as floating rates aren't any lower than they were in January, February, or March. All of which were abysmal. Except nope, fixed rates weren't lower in April. In fact, they were higher than they were in the previous April.

[00:02:19]Regardless though, what does Mercer have to say about how great April was?

[00:02:24]>> That we're still seeing, you know, April home sales well below what we had seen sort of over the the 10-year average, but an improvement nonetheless, both year-over-year, but also that month overmonth momentum as well.

[00:02:33]>> Mhm.

[00:02:34]>> Yeah. Month overmonth momentum. April is supposed to be better than March. It's the start of the so-called spring market. And look, I'll show everyone how easy it is to sus that out using skills learned in grade 12 high school some 25 or so odd years ago. First we want the difference from April to March over the past 13 years. So we'll subtract March from April. Then we'll apply it to all years. Then we'll get the average and we see a positive. Then we'll minus out the great big outlers during COVID 2020, 2021, and 2022 and see it's still massively positive. So April being better than March, that's not momentum.

[00:03:11]That's what's supposed to happen.

[00:03:12]Shouldn't Treb's chief information officer be good with information?

[00:03:17]>> I had to quit school.

[00:03:18]11 great.

[00:03:19]>> So that's the demand side of the equation. We have Treb pushing this 6% increase year-over-year as something of a big bounce. Buyers coming off of the sidelines when that's really not so much the case. But let's take a look at the other side of the equation. How about new listings? There aren't as many listings. You also highlight that, you know, down about six and a half% year-over-year here. Does that continue to tell you that some people are just almost refusing to want to sell their house in a market that seems down? Is that kind of part of that rationale that would appear?

[00:03:47]>> And yeah, again, new listings are in fact down from where they were last year, but they're still much higher than they were from the 10-year average, and they're still higher than they were a few years ago when the average home price was $100,000 higher.

[00:04:01]>> You have a certain price point that you want to hit. And so, if it doesn't look like you're going to get that, and you don't need to sell your home for any other reason, you know, then you're just going to stand pat. That's kind of that market mechanism where as we start to see sales increase and and perhaps listings are trending a little bit lower. It provides a little bit more market tightness, a bit more market tightness. Again, let's check it. We'll look at the months of inventory measurement, the literal measurement to observe supply and demand. Toronto had the exact same March to April, both sitting at 4.9 with this year seeing the loosest market that Toronto has had for the past 13 Aprils. So where exactly is this increased competition among home buyers?

[00:04:41]>> Fight, fight.

[00:04:42]>> And yeah, we can see the culmination of this narrative being positive. Home buyers are coming in off the sidelines at a time when home sellers are refusing to sell because the prices aren't high enough.

[00:04:53]>> A little bit more competition between home buyers and ultimately that'll provide some support for price. So we'll initially see prices, you know, flatline and then they'll start to edge upwards as people move into the marketplace saying, "Hey, you know, that downward trend has kind of stopped." And on that market tightening, let's see what the wizards at CP24 can come up with.

[00:05:12]>> And Jason, do you look at days on market or is that more of like an advertising thing that this was only on the market for a day or two or like does that factor into your mathematics at all?

[00:05:21]>> Wow, that's a good question. He seemingly just came up with that looking for brand new information.

[00:05:26]>> I mean, you know, even just 2 three years ago, houses were selling in days, not weeks.

[00:05:31]>> Yeah. Mhm. Now, why would you ask if they measured the days on market if you seemingly already knew the question?

[00:05:36]>> Long-term is just sort of another metric that speaks to that market tightness. I mean, if you're seeing that makes more sense. You want to tell me this stuff isn't presscripted.

[00:05:44]>> They can take more time to, you know, assess their options.

[00:05:47]>> Mhm. And what's the situation with rental properties?

[00:05:49]>> That's the well that the media continues to go back to across all media time after time. I can tell you that Brady Bunch thing that we had on earlier didn't even take that long. About 15 minutes. It took me 15 minutes to find those clips over the past 4 years.

[00:06:05]That's how often since 2022 that same tired refrain has been pushed by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board and bought hookline and sinker by the media who continues to have it back. Problem is there's just really no way to measure all of that hypothetical demand just sitting on the sidelines. Polling does not work. A few years back, Beimo released a poll saying 72% of home buyers would be jumping back in when the Bank of Canada cut interest rates. La Page has also released numerous polls pointing to something similar. And again, that also didn't happen. Our polling suggested that, you know, for the majority buyers that are on the sidelines right now, they need to see another, say, 100 basis points in in interest rate cuts before, you know, purchasing that home.

[00:06:52]I had to quit school when I was in 11th grade.

[00:06:54]>> And the reason, of course, is that that sideline demand is a function of cost.

[00:06:59]The real estate boards want you to think that demand is going back to where it was in 2021. Back when the average price was 1.1 million versus the 1.04 million that it is today. Back then, with a rate around 2%, the payment on that $1.1 million home would have been about $3,700. Fast forward using today's 4.59 from RBC, that payment would be $4,700.

[00:07:23]Is the demand that we saw in April of 2021 with a payment of 3,700 going to be the same that we see in April 2026 with a payment of $4,700? No. And to illustrate this, let's do a bit of economics. Let's take a look at a demand curve. As we can see, the demand for homes at 4,700 per month is much less than it is when homes are at 3,700 per month. And it's not just for homes. With some obvious exceptions, that's the case for all demand curves for most items.

[00:07:52]Just Google demand curve.

[00:07:54]>> Nice to have money.

[00:07:55]>> No, everyone can do it. It's free. Just use Google.

[00:07:59]>> I read it on the internet.

[00:08:00]>> But we can see it right there. Clear as day. We're not going to see the return of demand for homes like we did in 2021 so long as the cost is at 2026 levels.

[00:08:10]And look, I didn't want to just put this video together to show you the unflinching nonsense emanating out of the real estate industry. We're all well aware of their shtick or just to show how the industry is shamelessly propped up by the media is to show what the media presents and what the real estate industry pushes is something that cannot be proven. It's something that can't have data to back it up. This pent-up demand, these hordes of home buyers just sitting on the sidelines as it's the wrong conversation. And that's because I can only assume the correct conversation that of economics is one that A isn't taught in real estate school and B doesn't get the real estate industry where they want to be. That is convincing you that if you don't buy tomorrow, you're going to be outbid like all of those poor people back in 2021.

[00:08:56]All of those poor people that are down $300,000 on the benchmark price home. So the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board being the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, nothing new there. the media pushing whatever it's told, lobbing up those softballs. Nothing new there. But when we take everything in the aggregate and then more importantly take a look at what's not discussed, demand curves, well, we get a better idea as to why the real estate industry and the media has been so wrong for the past 5 years.

[00:09:24]They're not talking the proper conversation. They're talking about buyers coming in off the sidelines, which a they don't have the data to prove, and b there's good reason for that. As such, as always, make sure you do your own research. Don't listen to the experts. They're not experts.

[00:09:39]They're salespeople. And judging from the data, not very good ones at that.

[00:09:43]Don't trust the media. They're in the pockets of the salespeople. Do your own research. Buy at the time that's correct for you. We will obviously continue to disentangle what we see from the real estate industry, what we see in the media, from what's actually going on on this channel. Make sure you click like and subscribe if you want to get those updates. But for now, thanks so much for watching.