What has Donald Trump got to do with selling a house in NOTL?
More than you think, now that we’re part of China.
See Trump’s post on Truth Social from last Sunday, shared at 1:05 p.m.: “China is successfully and completely taking over the once great country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave ice hockey alone! President DJT.”
Last Saturday, the U.S. president called our prime minister “Governor Carney” and said if we started trading with China, there’d be a 100 per cent tariff slapped on Canadian goods heading into the States. On Sunday, he posted the message above, managing to avoid the subject of a U.S. citizen being murdered by ICE. Or Epstein. Or that weird Greenland speech at Davos (when he called it Iceland).
Well, picking on Canada has consequences. The impact on buyer confidence is as palpable as the silly ban in place against Americans buying houses here. Existing tariffs are bad enough (just ask the guys working at Stellantis in Brampton, or Ford in Oakville) but hiking them to 100 per cent — and maybe ripping up the existing Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement this summer? That’s war.
Already people are turtling. Unsold houses are piling up. Offers are fading. Prices slowly retreating. Seller anxiety growing. This past year, says a report from Bosley, “was one of the most, if not the most, challenging years in Niagara real estate history.”
In the whole of Niagara region, fewer than 6,000 properties changed hands in 2025. That was a first. A record. Worse than the credit crisis of 2007/8 when financial markets crashed and Wall Street megabanks failed.
People are worried about what’s going down across the river, where the most powerful person in the world (with the tanks, drones plus a habit of kidnapping heads of state) is dissing us.
And worried people don’t buy houses. Especially here, it seems.
DOM means “days on market” and is a benchmark indicator of market vitality. Right now, ours is barely showing a pulse.
The local realtor cartel says the average time taken to sell a home in the region has been running at just over 60 days. But that’s for all of Niagara. St. Catharines, at 44 days, was the lowest and NOTL was the highest — a whopping 120 days.
When it comes to the pricier places in Old Town, you can double that. Some agents say tripling is more like it. And the extreme time on market has been hidden routinely by relistings — when an agent sets the days clock back to zero, a fact not disclosed in statistics by indicting CDOM (cumulative days on market)
This pathetic column pointed that out recently. Local broker Patrick Burke agrees.
“I read your latest column regarding the absence of CDOM. You are absolutely correct that it’s desperately needed, especially in 2025 when cancelled and relisted properties are the majority,” he says. “Currently the gap between DOM and CDOM is at a minimum 30 days, but more likely in the 45-60 days. So yes, DOM is useless at the moment, which is why the board includes the disclaimer to at least give better context.
“It’s definitely on the agenda and we’re all pushing for the return of the reality of CDOM. This is out of NAR (Niagara Association of Realtors) or our control, so thank you for helping with my lobbying campaign.”
What next?
The realtors say they expect 2026 in this place to be “dynamic.”
But the hurdles are high. Rates are staying put. Trade is iffy. Trump is nuts. Inventory has been piling up and we’re waist high in snow. Maybe Beijing will save us.
Garth Turner is a NOTL resident, journalist, author, wealth manager and former federal MP and minister. garth@garth.ca
