Underbidding now taking place in many real estate markets across Ontario: realty company

globalnews.ca:

A digital real estate company has been analyzing the data across a good portion of the province and says prices and sales have dropped, with some underbidding now taking place in many areas.

Wahi, which offers a wide range of real estate services to consumers, analyzed the data in 10 cities outside the GTA, including Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Barrie and the three cities in Waterloo Region, with Kitchener being the only one that had not been affected on average by underbidding.

St. Catharines, London, Barrie and Guelph had the most underbidding occurring, although it still remains under three per cent of asking prices.

“We’re definitely seeing a underbidding trend in the higher-priced houses across the province,” Wahi CEO Benjy Katchen told Global News.

Wahi broke up Ottawa into districts, with the real estate company finding that 97 per cent of the 64 neighbourhoods with at least the sales last month were in underbidding territory.

The company said that while there is underbidding going on, it does not mean that all sellers are willing to take a cut if they are not in a hurry to sell.

Katchen pointed out that while housing prices are falling in many areas, it is not always easy for those looking to sell to take a loss on their investment.

“It’s definitely hard to accept perhaps, that your most valuable asset is not worth what you thought it was worth a year ago, or maybe what you paid for it,” he said.

“So in that respect, the prices that sellers are willing to sell at historically is often very sticky.”

Prices are also trending downward across a large number of Ontario locales, according to Katchen, although it has been at a different pace in different areas.

“If I compare the biggest city, the GTA, which is a market