Jeffrey I’m here again with Patrick Rocca of Bosley Real Estate, and we are in the early part of June 2025. Patrick, why don’t you introduce yourself and let us know what you do in the Davisville and Leaside area?

Patrick Rocca Good morning, Jeffrey. Thank you for having me. Yes, I’m Patrick Rocca with Bosley Real Estate, and my area of expertise is the Midtown area, Leaside, and Davisville. I’m a resident in the area and have been in the area for over 30 years.

Jeffrey And that’s quite something, being in this market for 30 years as a real estate agent. I was alluding to this earlier. Something I just noticed in the past four or five days is that I’ve noticed about half a dozen more listings in my little areas as I’ve been driving around. Most of them were actually Bosley Real Estate listings. But have you noticed a change in the market between, say, a week or two weeks ago and what we’re seeing now?

Patrick Rocca I think we’re into the final days and throes of the spring market, for what there was of the spring market, because it was all over the map. May was a very good month for me personally. I know if you look at the Toronto real estate statistics, there are more homes listed now in the GTA than in years. There are way more listings in our area. The interesting point is the statistics talk about how we’re down, price-wise, and how there’s more inventory and sales are down, but that’s GTA-specific. If you go neighbourhood-specific and you look at, let’s just say, Leaside/Davisville or some of the core areas, prime product is still moving there in specific price points. For example, I’m listing two this week in Davisville, one on Soudan and one on Balliol, and I suspect that they will sell quite quickly. And again, it all goes to the price point. Right now, most of the sales are in that under-2.5-million range, which has been pretty consistent for the last year or so. But you know, if you look at entry-level into our neighbourhood—the semis, the smaller detached—those things are still moving at the right price, right?

Jeffrey Yeah, and have you noticed that as a whole the market, in terms of movement for buyers, seems to have picked up a bit? You’re looking at more inventory, but in desirable areas that are, you know, “priced for new buyers,” there’s a lot of activity. Can you kind of break that down for us? Because what we are seeing now, based on the last time we talked, was a whole bunch of new conditions, the introduction of stress, and an uncertain environment. The Bank of Canada has, for the past two interest rate meetings, held the line on interest rate drops. So are you seeing people finally coming to grips with the uncertainty, the real estate market, and saying, “I’ve got to actually go buy something now, and now is as good a time as any”?

Patrick Rocca In certain cases, yes, but we’re still seeing a confidence gap. There’s no doubt about it. We’re seeing there’s good opportunity for buyers right now, but a lot of buyers—and I started noticing this more this year, late spring—a lot of buyers are still kind of waiting. And a lot of buyers who are in the market are still thinking that they can lowball stuff, which it’s really not. I mean, you know, there’s stuff that’s selling right now that are good opportunities that would’ve been selling for a couple hundred thousand dollars more two or three years ago, so there’s good opportunity. But I’m telling you, there is a real issue with confidence right now and uncertainty. Even though, you know, interest rates have held, I was reading or listening to something yesterday that they’re talking about maybe we won’t see an interest rate decrease until the later part of the year. I think we need to hopefully get a rate decrease sooner than later, and I do believe it will happen. I think it has to happen. And like I said, it’s confidence right now. It’s really, really a confidence thing with buyers. And it also goes back to sellers who are not being guided properly. They still have unrealistic expectations. So, you’ve got agents that aren’t advising their clients properly, and you’ve got sellers that are thinking 2022 and buyers that are thinking, you know, 2015.

Jeffrey Yeah.

Patrick Rocca It is a weird market. And it’s every deal. I mean, I had an interview with The Globe and Mail last week, and I said it: every deal is a challenge, whether it’s the seller, the buyer, or the agent that you’re dealing with. They’re just tougher to put together.

Jeffrey Interesting. So, you’re saying that we’re still seeing a little bit of unrealistic expectations on the seller’s side, perhaps a little bit of a wait-and-see attitude on the buyer’s side, and so it’s been harder to reconcile those two. Is there really a gap between what, for instance, a buyer would expect to get for the average price in the area—one, one-and-a-half million—and what’s actually available in inventory?

Patrick Rocca Yes. It depends. I had a property that I sold on Davisville a couple of weeks ago, and the buyer had a budget. They started looking at other areas, but they really wanted to be in Davisville Village, and they had to sacrifice on size and a little bit on location, but they got in. But a lot of buyers are still, you know, they still have that champagne taste, beer budget out there. And like I said, there are buyers… I had three offers on one of my listings a couple of weeks ago. One of the offers came in $300,000 under asking with conditions, and I’m like, “Who does that in multiple offers?” It was just bizarre, but that’s a case of a buyer with unrealistic expectations and also an agent who’s not guiding their client properly.

Jeffrey Wow. And you noticed that there were some multiples. Are we seeing a return to many deals having multiples, as we saw maybe five years ago where you had to come in strong, there were multiple offers, and you had to have no conditions with the hope of getting the sale? Are we starting to see that, or because there’s more inventory, are buyers being more cautious when they’re going in and submitting their offers?

Patrick Rocca No, we’re starting to see… well, we’ve been seeing it a lot this spring, but recently, in the last 30 to 45 days, we’re seeing a lot of multiples and we’re seeing over-asking. And you know, most of the offers are clean, and I think buyers have to know that they have to be clean. I had a property I listed in Davisville two weeks ago, and I sold it with a bully offer, you know, three days on the market. And that weekend alone, there were four or five houses in the area, including in Leaside, that all had bully offers and sold before the offer date. So that’s a good sign, but again, it’s all price dependent. It’s up to that 2.5-million-dollar range, right?

Jeffrey Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I know historically, houses at three, three-and-a-half million tend to be more niche, more specific. Although, we have seen, I would say, in this neighbourhood, prices creeping up into that range for new builds. And I think, again, the challenge is what we’ve been hearing on the news: how are buyers going to be financing these types of prices where, for a first-time homebuyer or even a move-up homebuyer, these are significant prices to contend with? On the other side, you’ve got the insecurity in terms of geopolitical events. So really, how do buyers start thinking about this if they are really starting to get serious about potentially buying their first home in the neighbourhood that they really want to live in?

Patrick Rocca I think, obviously, the first thing is getting pre-approved and understanding what their budget actually is. We’re not seeing it very often where houses are selling for some crazy number where you scratch your head and go, “How the heck is that going to appraise?” We don’t see that very often. So, I think buyers are safe that way. As long as they’re educated, getting good advice from their agent, getting, like I said, pre-approval, and working with a good mortgage broker. As long as they keep within their means, I think they’re going to be in good shape.

Jeffrey And another thing that we’ve been hearing about over the past couple of years is the wave of refinancing that’s happening for existing mortgage holders. And I know you’re not a specialist in this area, but we were hearing doom and gloom for the past two years about this cliff of refinancing that had to take place in 2025. I had to refinance as well, and there was doom and gloom that there was going to be a potential wave of defaults and it would lead to a lot of uncertainty in the market. Have you heard or seen anything anecdotally about that?

Patrick Rocca Yes, I have. As a matter of fact, I sold one under power of sale two weeks ago in Davisville, a condominium. I’ve also heard of other situations where people, you know, refinanced for various reasons in the past couple of years, whether it was a failed business or unemployment, or people had to sell. But we are hearing about power of sales a bit more, and we’re starting to see that there are people that, you know, are leveraged.

Jeffrey Yeah, yeah, most definitely. And I know even up to a couple of years ago, between the condos and sort of entry-level houses, people were always confident that the value of their property would be going up. So even if they had to really, really stretch for a couple of years and they did need to sell, they would have equity and be able to not be underwater. Now, potentially, given the market hasn’t appreciated the same amount, there could be situations where somebody’s underwater even if they have to sell. Do you think that type of realization is starting to come into, at least, the first-time homebuyer market?

Patrick Rocca Yes, yeah, I would say that for sure. That realization is there for sure. I think that again, the buyers have to understand right now they have leverage. Not all of them are using it, though. That’s the problem because they still think that the market is falling. And yeah, it’s going to go down a bit, but I mean, as I’ve said many times before, in real estate, the two things you can’t predict are the top and the bottom. But I mean, we’re off the bottom, and there are some good opportunities. But on the other hand, there are sellers that are still in denial, right? You know, who paid big bucks during… specifically, you talked about infill. I mean, they paid big bucks for lots during COVID, built the property, and now they’re trying to sell them. Well, they paid 2 million for the lot in COVID, and now that lot is probably worth 1.5 million, maybe. And it cost more to build during the past couple of years, and now they’re trying to sell for four, and the house is worth three. There are all sorts of those issues out there too. That’s why you’re seeing those infill projects sit.

Jeffrey Yeah, and you talked about opportunities. As a smart buyer, what do you have to be aware of when you’re looking at buying opportunities, especially in that Davisville-Leaside area?

Patrick Rocca I mean, Leaside is a pretty safe area to buy in, so I just think it’s always location, location, location. Be careful and do your research. Make sure you’re working with someone local that knows where the condo developments are going to be. I mean, you don’t want to be buying a house on a street where a couple of neighbours have been bought up by a developer, right? And there are some situations like that where I’ve had instances where I told buyers, “There’s a developer buying up houses on this street, stay away from it.” So as a first-time buyer, you want to be careful of that.

Jeffrey Definitely. So, like you said, being plugged into the development process. And I know that areas are being re-zoned, and we do obviously need more housing, and condos seem to be the quickest way to build mass amounts of housing. But like you said, there are areas where if you’re going to be dealing with construction over the next two to five years, that can significantly impact the potential for you to be able to show your property to its best advantage, right? You know, buyers don’t want to be tripping over construction debris as they’re going into an open house.

Patrick Rocca Well, this is true. And on the other hand, buyers also don’t want to be living through four or five years of condo construction, right?

Jeffrey 100% agree. Now, we’ve talked in the past about, in this area specifically, because there are older homes, there are opportunities to work with somebody, especially a real estate agent, who can see potential and be able to see beyond potentially outdated light fixtures and old windows. Are you still seeing those opportunities in the housing stock, or are most of those now being turned over and modernized?

Patrick Rocca Sorry, I’m not quite sure I understand the question. So you’re asking me if we’re seeing houses that are dated that are coming to market? Yes, oh yeah. As a matter of fact, of the two listings I’m bringing out this week, one is an estate sale, and it’s pretty much lot value. The other one is a lovely home, a fabulous garden, and parking, but it could probably use an update in the kitchen, and you could do some work in the basement. So you’re seeing that. That’s a good opportunity for buyers to get into the market and add their own touches.

Jeffrey And you touched on a really interesting point, which is that there are probably still properties out there that have been well-maintained. And if you are realistic as a buyer, you don’t have to dig out the basement and top up the roof right away. You could probably stage some of that work so that you’re ready to do it as you kind of grow with the house. I think a lot of buyers think if they’re looking at a property that is dated, that it needs to be a total gut job just to be able to move in, with one year of construction and a huge budget.

Patrick Rocca Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it’s hard to find the perfect house, and a lot of buyers, when they move in, they want to add their personal touches right away. But if you find something that’s decent and livable, like you said, you can do things over time, right?

Jeffrey Yeah, yeah. I think if you’re looking at a purchase price of, you know, seven figures—one-and-a-half to two million seems to be around what we’re getting for a house in the area—and then you’re thinking, “I’ve got to spend another half a million dollars to bring it up to my standards,” that’s an extremely big pill to swallow. So, if you could, you know, paint, change the fixtures, work with a designer to give it that more modern feel, and then save the big work for later on, I think that helps people mitigate a bit of the uncertainty of, “Well, we put so much into this house. We need the rest of the neighbourhood to come up to value so that we don’t get squeezed as the most expensive house on the market.”

Patrick Rocca No, you’re 100% correct.

Jeffrey Yeah, so I think, in terms of our original conversation, you’re absolutely right. The Greater Toronto Area as a whole is a bit different from specific markets, and I think you need to look beyond the numbers, especially with your agent, to really understand what’s happening in the neighbourhood. We’ve talked about this before in terms of things like dealing with multiple offers and being able to see potential in properties, but you brought up a fantastic point about understanding the neighbourhood dynamics and potential developments which are going to affect the value of your home in the future.

Patrick Rocca Absolutely. And as you know, there’s a lot of development happening in our community. So, if you’re a buyer walking in blindly and you’re not in tune with what’s going on, you could find yourself in the middle of a potential construction site.

Jeffrey Oh yeah, yeah. And not just one within your own four walls, but one that is looking to take over the entire street.

Patrick Rocca Absolutely, yeah, exactly.

Jeffrey Fantastic. So we’ve covered a lot of ground here, and again, I thank you for your time, Patrick. If folks want to reach out to you, what’s the best way for them to get a hold of you?

Patrick Rocca The best way for them to get a hold of me is through my office at Bosley at 416-322-8000, or you can email me. Email’s always good; I have my phone with me at all times. And that’s mail@patrickrocca.com. If anybody wants to talk about the upcoming summer market or fall market and my thoughts on that, I’d be happy to talk with them.

Jeffrey Fantastic. Yeah, and you know, we’ve been doing this for quite a while. As you mentioned, 30 years in the market, and definitely, I think if folks really want to know what’s happening in the Davisville-Leaside market, you’re one of the first stops people should make.

Patrick Rocca Thank you very much, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey All right, thanks, Patrick. As always, it’s been a pleasure, and I know we’ll talk soon.

Patrick Rocca Absolutely. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye-bye.