Reading this article you'd think that the Toronto housing bubble still has legs, but all the hot money has been sucked out of the system. There are a few 'desperate' people going after very few listings, so it looks really good. But the question to ask is why are there no listings, when people could get 20% more than a month ago?
It's a vicious circle. In the past year or two all the frenzy has been driven by upgrading, with hot money being the blower on the forge. If you want to upgrade now, you'd have to crazy outbid others and then assume you could sell your house for a huge amount over asking. You'd need financing for this, the formal calculated spread is huge, and perhaps you wouldn't qualify. So people are sitting tight.
Speculators are seeing the price rise and holding onto their empty houses and condos. This is a time of great uncertainty, and it doesn't help that people like me are calling 'crash'. (as if anybody reads me)
Anyway, it always like this before a crash. Everything goes into paralysis for 6 months. Then it is dependent on 'desperate sellers'. Obviously, if you are strung out with a new house waiting, it is time to sell and then rent for a while, or take a long closing. Obviously, you won't do this, because the prices are zooming and you wish to wait to the last minute. Read the article and you'll be comforted, since there is nothing about a crash in it. It is just assumed all the foreign buyers went to Toronto because of a 15% tax when they were all looking at doubling their money. That is an assumption with no physics (or hard data), and we all know how people really like that stuff. :) It's more likely that they all fled Canada.
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