It’s true. I lost my mind twice and got elected.

The first time was OK. The boss (Mulroney) and I were good. The second time was a disaster.

It ended with Stephen Harper throwing me out of caucus. The day it happened the finance minister (Jim Flaherty) stood in front of all the party MPs and said, “Garth Turner does not run an alternative government.”

And out on my derriere I went.

The crime? Partly it was because I blogged about what the feds were doing (Harper hated that). Mostly because I dug my heels in on mortgages.

The PM and Flaherty wanted to bring in insured home loans with 0 per cent downpayments and 40-year amortizations. My argument was prices would ignite and credit inflate. I caused a stink, but was outvoted.

You know the rest. Canadian real estate ballooned in value. The government had to backtrack. But too late. The horse was out of the barn and busy shopping at Home Depot for marble countertops and bamboo flooring. Real estate would never again be “affordable.”

Well, the Bank of Canada in recent years jacked rates 10 times to cool inflation, including house prices. It worked on groceries, but not on homes.

Rates have now dropped twice, with two more chops likely in 2024. In NOTL the market, like the weather, has been uncomfortably sticky.

“The rate drops may not do much to help,” Sotheby’s agent Kymberley McKee tells me.  “I believe this trend will continue for the foreseeable future.”

That trend, simply put, is a big whack of listings, low sales and prices that won’t budge.

Why is that? After all, down the QEW real estate has taken a haircut of about 20 per cent. Condo prices have been dropping weekly — in fact one in five now listed (a record number) has lowered the ask.

But, alas, NOTL is different.

“In Niagara-on-the-Lake, we have a micro-market where very few homeowners have mortgages and most are under no pressure to sell their property,” says Re/Max agent Greg Sykes.

“Therefore, they can hold strong to their desired price, which helps keep the NOTL market and prices steady.”

But what if you need to get out? Currently there are 300 homes for sale here (including St. Davids, Queenston, Virgil and Old Town), a couple of dozen have pending offers and only two closed recently. Crickets.

Prices have shrunk less than four per cent (the average is $1.1 million, 55 per cent higher than all of Niagara). The time it takes to sell has swollen. And, yeah, the bank rate cuts were a nothingburger.

“The benchmark price has essentially levelled out last month,” says Niagara’s realtor association head Nathan Morrissette, “and it’s likely going to take multiple rate cuts from the Bank of Canada to start seeing a real impact on the housing market.”

But with the next cuts not likely until October and December that means things stay slow and sticky until the spring of 2025.

For sellers, be realistic or withdraw, the agents say.

“Correct pricing is everything,” warns McKee. “Sellers that need to sell in this market need to adjust their expectations away from the pandemic pricing. Look to the properties that are selling, not the properties that are listed.”

Sykes is blunter. “Only sell if you need to.”

If you really must exit, then price it low. Stage it. Repair it. But he also says the negotiating power buyers now have won’t last.

“If I may be frank, I believe we’re going to see prices start to improve in the next couple years.”

“Improve” is realtor-speak for “increase.” It’s a Canadian thing. When nobody can afford real estate, life is normal.