This week, housing markets across the country are being run by buyers, and sellers are left deciding their next moves. Plus, how one Canadian was left on the hook for a lot of debt after refinancing his mortgage, and one property worth a look.

While transactions have perked up this month after a few months of tariff-induced chill, as Carolyn Ireland writes, many buyers are still holding back in anticipation that the market will lower even further. Meanwhile, one Toronto realtor is advising sellers who don’t have an urgent need to sell to wait until September to post a listing — if they insist on an unrealistic price, she said she doesn’t take them on as clients. “For sellers, the sale of their home is based on emotion,” says Simson Chu, real estate agent with Chestnut Park Real Estate. “Buyers actually look at the facts.”

Back in December, Hamilton-based truck driver Raymond Chen and his wife signed a mortgage refinance agreement with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce — the plan was to use a good chunk of the money to wipe out a long list of high-interest debts. Instead, CIBC used around $57,000 of the funds to pay off an interest-free government loan the couple had taken out through the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive, despite not having any written documentation showing they wanted it to be done. Now, as Erica Alini writes, Mr. Chen and his family are struggling with thousands of dollars of debt they still have to repay, all while carrying an even larger mortgage. Read more on their saga here.

Rates shown are the lowest available for each term/type and category (insured versus uninsured) as of market close on Thursday, July 24.

The housing market is in a funk. Although owning a home is the cheapest it’s been in a few years, it’s easy to understand why prospective purchasers are reluctant to take the plunge — home prices are still well above prepandemic levels, and a trade war is casting a pall over the Canadian economy. That confluence of factors is creating a bind for the federal government, which has pledged to make housing more affordable, Rita Trichur writes. If the Carney government is indeed averse to falling home prices, then it will naturally face the temptation to once again loosen mortgage insurance rules to create the illusion of improved affordability for cash-strapped buyers. But that would only create new problems.

There are a handful of Canadian markets that are bucking the general housing trend seen across the country, whether they’re falling hard due to the chaos south of the border by U.S. President Donald Trump, or they’re lifted because of a rush of buyers heading to more affordable communities. From Edmonton to Quebec City, Salmaan Farooqui spoke to real estate professionals across the country to highlight some of the Canadian markets that are notable for performing either better or worse than the national average.

99 Harbour Square, unit 613, Toronto –