Today is Black Friday, and if you’re tired of looking at the sales being promoted all over social media, we thought we’d look at it from a real estate perspective.
In the past, we’ve talked about how while there may not be such a thing exactly as Black Friday for real estate, there are opportunities to buy homes at a discounted price. We went through what to look for and gave an example of a property that was for sale that fit the description.
In another article we gave some examples of door crasher type deals that buyers managed to secure.
That was back in 2021, so we thought it was about time we take another look at the idea of Black Friday for real estate!
This time around, we looked to see if we could identify some properties currently for sale that theoretically could be advertised as Black Friday specials. While I’m sure the listing agents and the sellers don’t think of the homes that way, if you’re offering something for sale at a considerable discount to what it used to be priced, we think it falls under the same category as a Black Friday deal.
Let’s check out the deals!
First, how we found ‘em.
We followed the same criteria we described in our article about how to find discounted homes and did a search for vacant homes with immediate possession who have changed their price since listing the home for sale.
We decided to look at detached homes in Toronto, as that is generally considered the holy grail of real estate in the city – and any bargain in that regard is worth hunting down!
As of today’s date, (November 28, 2025) that gave us 79 properties for sale. We had to remove 23 of those properties, as the houses were actually now higher priced than originally listed, up by about 15%. While that may sound bizarre, what it means is that these 23 houses listed at a price they considered lower than market value, held off offers for a marketing period of a week or so, and then failed to sell. When that happened, they changed their approach and raised their price to the actual price they’d take.
When we look at the 56 homes that remain, we start to see the bargains show up!
7% off doesn’t sound like much. How about a $142,000 discount?
The average price drop for these 56 homes is 7.2% and the new discounted prices range from just 1.7% below their former price to 17.4% off! In real dollar terms, sellers have slashed between $19,000 to $701,000 off their original list price, with an average discount of $142K.
Let’s look at the bottom of the barrel as well as the top of the list to see what’s happening in the extremes.
Worst of the Bargains
The worst of these Black Friday type bargains is a detached bungalow located in the Woburn area of east Toronto. Originally priced at $948,888, the price was dropped down to $929,888 on November 11th, after 31 days on the market. It’s been another 17 days since then and the home remains available.
With a listed possession date of October 31st and currently vacant, it seems likely that the modest price 2% discount off of the original price isn’t the end of the line for this property. We say “original price” but that’s just for the latest listing. The history for it shows no less than six previous unsuccessful attempts to sell it, going back to September 2023, so it is pretty clear the owner thinks it is worth more than the market.
Click on the photo to see the listing.
Heck of a Deal!
The most appealing Black Friday bargain for a detached home isn’t really for a detached home, despite how it being listed as one. It is effectively vacant land, with just a foundation and building permits in place on a large lot in the St. Andrews – Windfields neighbourhood of Toronto. That’s a very desirable and affluent neighbourhood in North York and the property has a fascinating and somewhat tragic history.
The original home on the lot was torn down and back in October 2023, a French chateaux style home was built on the lot, with six bedrooms, ten washrooms and a six car garage. Listed for $13.8M in October 2023, it was the start of a new period in the life of the property, or at least it was supposed to be. On Thursday, December 14th, the home burned down in what was determined to be arson. Here’s the Global News story on it.
Almost exactly a year after the newly built was put on the market for $13.8M, the property was relisted at $5.188M. With the building razed down to the above grade level, with just the foundation (including the six car built-in garage) remaining, it was marketed as a “Builder’s Dream in York Mills” with a building permit and foundation already in place.
After two months on the market, the listing was terminated and the owner, now a numbered company, held the property for close to a year. In September 2025 it was relisted at $4.7M, and two years after the built mansion was listed for $13.8M, the price for the remaining “as is” property was dropped down to $4M. The listing is now being shown as power of sale on behalf of the numbered company that owns it, so clearly there is trouble behind the scenes. As of today, it’s been on the market for 74 days with no takers, despite the drop of over $700K in asking price.
Click on the photo to see the listing.
And the best actual bargain goes to…
In terms of an actual detached house that has dropped the most from their original list price, that dubious honour belongs to a detached two storey home with 5 bedrooms and 4 washrooms, located in the Agincourt neighbourhood of north east Toronto.
Originally listed at $1.68M, it has dropped in price to $1.388M, a whopping 17.4% decrease. That’s down $292,000 and given it is vacant, with an asking possession date of September 19, 2025, the current price is likely more than what it will actually receive.
Click on the photo to see the listing.
The history for this home is one of those cautionary tales that the media loves to focus on, as the current owners paid $1.55M for it when they bought back in September, 2023. A bit over two years later, they’re now willing to sell for $162,000 less than they paid – and that’s before the double land transfer tax they paid when they bought and realtor commissions to sell.
Apparently it’s a good time to buy a custom home.
A number of the top bargains – either on a percentage discount off their list price or in actual dollars dropped – are new custom homes.
We’ve seen this in our work with buyer clients in the new custom home space, where builders who bought a few years ago at the height of the market now struggling to sell the completed home at a price that allows them to make a profit. The five highest priced months in Toronto for detached homes was the first five months of 2022, from January to May. If a builder bought a tear down home in February 2022, they would have bought at the highest average price for detached homes in the last 15 years. The average price for a detached home in Toronto is down almost half a million since February 2022, which means that for many builders, the market drop has erased their hoped for profit.
Above are links to five examples of new (or newish) builds currently for sale that are hundreds of thousands of dollars less now than originally listed. They range from $1.75M up to $6.7M, so while they aren’t cheap, they are certainly cheaper!
If you’ve enjoyed this look at some bargain properties out there and you love the idea of having us look for ones that fit your specific requirements, it’s what we do. Get in touch with us to chat about what you’re looking for and we’ll do the rest!
