Happy Fall! My favorite time of the year - just wish it was longer!
Getting to the market update - what's been happening? That's the big question in real estate - how's the market?  I get that all the time. So, how IS the market? It's not bad, to be honest.  It's not too bad. 
Let me give you a bit of a rundown:
 So, we peaked in February of this year and then we started coming down in March. We came down pretty rapidly in May and June - they were the 2 biggest months of decline. The reason for that was when all that bidding was going on, you basically had to buy a house first.  That was the thing - you had to buy first because if you sold first, you wouldn't be able to find something.  You would be outbid and you would have had the risk of being homeless.  So, all the way up until February, people were buying first and then selling. Then, when things corrected in March, people put their houses on the market at the price that they thought was market value - and then the buyers disappeared. So the houses sat and sat and sat. Meanwhile, the closing dates on their new homes started to come closer and closer - so they got crunched.  They had to take a major "haircut" on the sale of their place and prices dropped drastically, with a little bit of panicking, to make sure that they closed. 
Since then, the market has dropped.  It's still dropping.  20-25% since February, in certain areas. In the areas I work in, about 20% (Halton, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville.  Recently though, the market hasn't dropped as drastically. We're dropping at about 1-1.5% per month now. And we're still going to come down, because rates are continuing to go up. A lot of people are saying that around the summer of next year, it should finally start to turn. I agree with that.  I think it's going to happen that way too.
I get this all the time: IS IT A GOOD TIME TO SELL RIGHT NOW?  You know what? It's a great time to sell because you actually KNOW that what you are selling right now is going to be worth less in about 6 months. So how can you go wrong, really? When you think about it, you sell something now and by the time you buy something else, the price has already gone down on your sale. So it's actually a good time to do that, if you can do it.
Here's a true story I'd like to share with you:  I had a client back in February who was thinking of selling in a year because he was going to be retiring. But, he said he had the option of early retirement, so he was thinking of possibly putting his house on the market now - in order to take advantage of the higher sales prices. He had a cottage, where he was planning on retiring. So I met with him in February and I said, "You know what? Things are gonna turn".  And he questioned if I was sure because he didn't know if it really was going to change. He didn't want to make the mistake of selling now, if a year from now his home would be worth $300K more.  I said I thought that he would do alright if he listed it now. So, he actually did the math - and because it was his principle residence, there was no capital gains on it. He chose to forgo a year of salary in exchange for the appreciation on his house. If he had waited that extra year, his house would have gone down by about $200-$300k, because he didn't actually sell it until about April (it took him a few months to decide). So, in a year, that house is going to be worth about $200-300k less and he banked that money (in a sense) and he got a year earlier retirement. So it was a win-win for him!
We're presently down about 1-2%, so if you're in the market to sell right now, I can give you some advice - don't buy first. But that's a no-brainer, right? That's why the market is slowing right now, as far as the depreciation. It's not as rapid as it was because people are actually selling their properties now before buying. They don't want to take on the risk. There are actually a few offers coming in these days conditional on the buyers selling their property. During hot times, you'd never see that. Every two or three days I see a "sold conditional" with an E at the end of it, which means escape clause, which means that the buyer has the right to sell their property first before firming up on the deal. The seller also has a right to market the home to other buyers and if an offer comes in they have 48 hours to firm up on the original offer or take the new offer.  It's kind of complicated but if you're a buyer, it's a way of covering yourself. And in a hot market, sellers will just say "forget it, I'm not taking that - I'm gonna get a firm offer from somebody tomorrow, so why should I be at your mercy". But when there's not alot of buyers out there, that's what happens.
So go grab a cozy sweater, get that fireplace going... and enjoy Fall (while it lasts!)