The past few weeks have been filled with massive change in the way our normal, mostly comfortable, lives have been for the majority of us in the wonderful city of Toronto that we live in.

Covid 19 has temporarily placed major parts of our city on shutdown, like many other parts of the world, and if we remain positive and keeps thing in perspective, that the goal of this shutdown is to ‘flatten the curve.’

Have there been effects to the real estate market? Of course there have. It’s naive to think with so much uncertainty surrounding stopping this endemic, that it’s not business as usual in most cases.

There are many moving parts in the buying and selling of property. Let’s have a look: Real Estate agents, Lawyers, Home Inspectors, Lenders and Mortgage Brokers, Appraisers, Stagers, Photographers, Property Management in condo buildings, cleaners, junk removal companies, storage facilities. The list can go on and on. Now also add in to all of the above, both back and front end staff who assist in moving the process along.

In some respect, each of these services have been affected and may be either temporarily shut down, or operating in a limited capacity. For now.

Now back to what we should be focusing on. The containment and limiting of the spread of Covid 19. We all understand (at least I hope that we all do!) this is of vital necessity and for the greater good. Does this mean the sky is falling in the Toronto real estate market?

No!

But, there will be adjustments that have to be made and quite possibly in the short term, it will be a new learning curve. It’s yet to be seen because we still don’t know exactly how long this will continue.

I’ve been in constant daily communication with a network of active Realtors who have all come together to help communicate and share information to assist in help navigate and understanding what lays ahead.

Communication with my real estate Lawyer frequently, being updated by lenders and mortgage brokers, even online forums of my network of brokers across North America has been of added value.

Just remember, we are all in this together. Toronto is our home and was a great city before this virus, to work, live and invest in. I don’t see anything changing that once we come through this.