It’s not an easy time to be a Toronto homeowner trying to sell your home right now – and it’s not so much the fact that prices are down, and expected to drop even lower. It’s the sheer unpredictability of it all.

In east Toronto on Danforth Avenue, a home with a $489,000 asking price sat on the market for two weeks. Then, it received two competing offers on the same day.

The same thing was seen in upscale Birchcliff, where a home that would cost buyers a $989,000 Toronto mortgage sat on the market and received little interest for its first two weeks. Two buyers showed up on the same day and put in competing offers.

The market isn’t falling apart, so there’s no need for sellers to panic. But they certainly can’t go into today’s market thinking it’s the same atmosphere that it was this past spring and summer. It simply isn’t, and thoughts like that are dangerous and will only lead to disappointment.

So what are sellers to do? Simply, change their thought patterns – and change their selling tactics.

In the prime time of Toronto’s market, it wasn’t uncommon for sellers to set a deadline for offers. This would be one, two, or three weeks from the time it went up for listing; and it would give the seller a better chance of creating competition, collecting more offers, and getting the most dollar from their home that they could.

A few months ago, when buyers were willing to walk over top of each other, and pay top dollar while doing it, just to ensure that they got the home they wanted, this was a good strategy. Now, it’s simply a dangerous one.

Buyers have caught onto that trend; and they’re also very knowledgeable about the delicate Toronto market right now. They also know that they hold many more cards than they did in the spring, and they’re not willing to be held to conditions such as deadlines for offers.

But it doesn’t mean that the seller’s hands are tied either. One way sellers can protect themselves, while still attracting buyers, is to stipulate that any offers are irrevocable for the first 24 to 48 hours. This allows a seller to back out of a deal should they receive a better offer, and with no consequence to them.

This is a better tactic than placing a deadline on an offer, but it’s still not one that’s guaranteed to work. Sometimes buyers will reverse that, and tell the seller that their offer is only good for the next few hours. After that, they’re moving on to more house-hunting. That does put the pressure on, but it’s still a better scenario that having a home sit on the market for weeks with no interest.

The key really, is to just be more willing to go with the flow, and realize that it’s a changing market. Flexibility is the only answer to unpredictability; and until Toronto’s market settles down some and starts to once again show some consistency, it’s the only option sellers have.