If you've read anything about our market lately, you've seen a version of the same story. Prices down from last year. Sales at their weakest August in over a decade. It reads like a market still sliding.

Here's what the August numbers actually show.

The benchmark barely moved

The MLS Home Price Index for the Hamilton-Burlington area came in at $728,400 in August. That's down 0.2 per cent from July.

Not two per cent. Not five. Two tenths of one per cent.

Look at the three months together and the shape is obvious. June moved 0.9 per cent. July moved 1.0 per cent. August moved 0.2 per cent. The decline didn't stop overnight, it decelerated, and by August it had nearly flattened. Cornerstone's own CEO made the same point in the release, noting the benchmark has stayed relatively stable and that we are not seeing dramatic price declines even as activity cooled.

So why does the coverage still sound grim? Because most of it leads with the annual number.

Watch what the annual number is already doing

In July, prices were down 4.9 per cent from a year earlier. In August, down 3.9 per cent.

A full percentage point of improvement in one month. And the market didn't rally to produce it. That gap closed on its own, because year over year always measures today against the same month twelve months ago, and the months it's now measuring against are themselves already soft.

That's the whole mechanic, and it's about to run in your favour for the next several months. Come January, 2027 gets compared to 2026, which is already down. Same market, same quiet monthly drift, and the percentage shrinks toward nothing.

Somewhere this winter people will read that prices were essentially unchanged from a year ago, and they'll take it as the signal that things have turned. But the turning is what's happening right now, in monthly numbers nobody writes articles about.

The honest part

Prices aren't holding because buyers flooded back in. They didn't. August sales were down 14.5 per cent from last year and almost 20 per cent from July, the slowest August in more than a decade.

What's actually happening is that supply pulled back at the same time. New listings dropped 17.7 per cent year over year and the number of homes for sale fell 11.3 per cent. Months of supply eased to 4.4 from 4.6. Sellers who don't have to move are staying put, and that withdrawal is holding the floor under pricing.

That matters, because it tells you what to watch. If listings come back in force next spring without buyers returning alongside them, pricing gets tested again. That's the honest version. Anyone telling you the recovery is guaranteed is selling you something.

What this means if you're buying

The person who buys this fall and the person who waits for the reassuring headline will likely pay something close to the same price. The difference is who they're standing next to.

Right now, homes are averaging 43 days on market, up 10 per cent from last year. You can see a house twice before writing. You can keep a condition in your offer. You can negotiate without three competing bids on the table.

That flexibility is the first thing that disappears when everyone gets permission at the same moment. Not price. Leverage.

What this means if you're selling

You're not catching 2022 pricing, and waiting a year on the hope of a rebound is a bet nobody can responsibly promise you.

What you can control is pricing into the market that exists. And there's a real advantage sitting in these numbers: with new listings down almost 18 per cent, your home is competing against meaningfully fewer others than it would have a year ago. Fewer buyers, but fewer rivals too.

Nobody rings a bell at the bottom

What you get instead is a stretch of quiet months where the numbers barely move and the coverage stays negative because the math is still catching up. That's roughly where we are.

None of this is a forecast. It's just the difference between the number in the headline and the market in front of you.

If you want to know what this looks like for your specific home or your price range, that's a conversation, not a statistic. Reach out any time.

Chris Cipriani, Cipriani Team, RE/MAX Escarpment Realty Inc.
905-978-7834 | [email protected]