Selling guide
Since December 2018, Jonathan Wallace has helped more than 500 families through a real estate transition on Georgian Bay, working through the boom, the correction, and everything between. In 2021, Top Agent Magazine featured him during the most frenzied seller's market Simcoe County had seen. The market today looks nothing like that. This is what actually changed, and why it matters for anyone selling property in Midland, Penetanguishene, Tiny Township, or Tay Township in 2026.
Key takeaways
- The 2021 boom rewarded speed and made every agent look like a hero. Skill still mattered underneath, but it was invisible because everything sold.
- A slower market created two problems nobody warned sellers about: too much choice for buyers and a loss of emotional validation for sellers when the first three weeks passed without an offer.
- The job shifted from facilitating transactions to providing consultative leadership, which means telling the truth even when the truth costs you the listing.
- The agents who survived the correction are not the same agents who thrived in the boom. The work changed them, and the ones who adapted are better for it.
- Sellers in 2026 need an agent who has been through the full cycle, not just the part that was easy.
The napkin on the lawn
In late 2021, Top Agent Magazine featured me in their Canada edition. I was already several years and a few hundred families into this career by then, and the market was moving at a pace that made every week feel compressed: multiple offers on nearly everything, homes selling tens of thousands over asking, and buyers driving three hours from Toronto to write offers on properties in Midland, Penetanguishene, and Tiny Township that they had spent thirty minutes inside.
You could put a napkin at the end of the lawn and it would sell.
That is not quite a joke. It is close to what happened. And inside that frenzy, a strange thing was true: skilled agents were still outperforming. A strong negotiator was still getting sellers higher offers than the agent down the street. A disciplined buyer's agent was still the difference between winning and losing in a field of twelve competing bids. The skill was real. It was just invisible, because everything sold, and everyone looked like a hero.
What a slower market actually does to people
The correction changed two things that have nothing to do with interest rates or inventory counts.
The first is choice. In 2021, buyers had to decide between column A and column B. Walk through a house, spend thirty minutes, and commit within forty-eight hours or lose it. There was almost no decision to agonize over because there was almost no time. Now a buyer tours six houses, sleeps on it, wakes up to a seventh listing that just came on, and suddenly the list is too long. Too much information. Too many options. The research never ends and the decision never arrives.
This is not a complaint about buyers being indecisive. It is a real cognitive problem. When the choices are few, deciding is simple. When the choices multiply, deciding becomes harder, not easier, and people freeze. That pattern has shaped the work more in the last three years than anything the Bank of Canada did.
The second is validation. Sellers take their home being on the market personally. In 2021, a house that sold in four days with eleven offers felt like the world confirming that the seller's taste, their renovations, their neighbourhood, everything about their life in that house was right. Now, when a well-priced home sits for twenty-one days and the showing count is steady but no offer has landed, that silence feels like rejection. Not market data. Rejection. As if every buyer who walked through decided that the seller's choices were wrong.
Nobody warns sellers about that part. The financial exposure of a declining market gets discussed. The emotional exposure does not.
What the job actually became
Both of those shifts changed the job.
In a market where everything sells in a weekend, the agent's role is transactional. Manage the paperwork, coordinate the offers, close the deal. In a market where buyers stall and sellers internalize, the agent's role is consultative. Cut through the noise. Ask the right qualifying questions. Understand what a client actually needs versus what they say they want on the first call. And then lead, actively, through the decision, because most people negotiate a real estate transaction once every seven to ten years and I am doing it once a week.
That gap in frequency is the entire argument for hiring someone who does this for a living. But it also creates a responsibility that a lot of agents avoid, which is telling people things they do not want to hear.
The bad guy now or the bad guy later
The hardest part of the last four years has been managing emotions in genuinely difficult situations.
Here is the pattern. A homeowner stretched into a mortgage at the top of the market. Prices softened. They held on, assuming the fall market would recover the gap. It did not. They extended themselves on a line of credit. The line ran out. By the time the conversation happened, the gap between what was owed and what the market would pay had widened again, and the options had narrowed to selling at a significant loss or negotiating with the lender to avoid something worse.
These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are real conversations that happen at a kitchen table, and they are the hardest thing I do.
What became clear after enough of those conversations is simple. I can either be the bad guy now, or I can be the bad guy later with new information that makes it even worse.
That sentence is the entire philosophy. Get the information. Be honest about what it says. Give the client a clear picture and a path forward, and then let them decide. My job is to tell the truth, not to tell someone what they want to hear in order to keep the listing.
Leaving the door open
That honesty costs something. There is always another agent willing to quote a higher number. A seller hears one agent say $749,000 and another say $799,000, and human nature takes over. They list with the higher number. Sometimes that works. Often it does not, and the listing sits until a price reduction brings it back to where the honest read started, minus the carrying costs and the market fatigue.
When I lose a listing that way, the posture is the same every time. I tell the seller that I understand their decision. I tell them the door is open if the situation changes. And I mean it, because if I have a buyer who fits that property, I am going to bring them regardless of which agent holds the listing. That is the job.
Some agents read that as weakness. It is the opposite. It is what a consultant does that a salesperson cannot: lose the listing and still be right, and still be available afterward.
The bet I would make differently
If this piece were only about what other people should have done differently, it would be a lecture. So here is the part where I made the same call.
During the climb, the market in our area was accustomed to roughly five percent growth per year. During COVID, it was escalating at five percent per month. I leveraged into that assumption. I invested in real estate, took on a higher mortgage, and raised my lifestyle instead of building financial reserves.
Looking back, had I been more disciplined with savings during the boom, I would have had more capital to deploy during the correction, when there was real leverage available as a buyer. I watched opportunities go past that I could have caught with a larger reserve.
That is the same call a lot of homeowners in this market made, and having lived it on the same side of the table is part of what changed how I work. When I sit across from someone and walk through what the numbers say, I am not speaking from a textbook. I have been on that side of the conversation too.
Where things stand now
Five years ago I lived in Midland. Today I live on acreage in Tiny Township with my partner Courtney, a detached shop, a new dog, and a rental property in Port McNicoll. I moved to Faris Team for its marketing infrastructure and agent culture. I have attended another six international service missions in the Dominican Republic since that magazine feature. The work there has nothing to do with real estate and everything to do with why I do it. Perspective matters. Service matters. Coming home to Georgian Bay after building in a place where people have very little tends to clarify what actually counts.
And there are more grey hairs. They were earned.
What this means if you are selling
If you are selling property on Georgian Bay in 2026, whether in Midland, Penetanguishene, Tiny Township, Tay Township, or Wasaga Beach, the agent you hire matters more now than it did in 2021. In a hot market, the house sells itself and the agent manages logistics. In this market, pricing strategy, marketing quality, and the willingness to have a hard conversation early are the difference between selling well and sitting.
Five years ago I was grateful for a magazine feature. Today I am more interested in whether the last ten sellers I represented would recommend me to the next one. That is the only measure that counts.
Common questions
How has the Georgian Bay real estate market changed since 2021?
The Georgian Bay real estate market shifted from a seller's frenzy with historically low inventory and competing offers on nearly every listing to a balanced environment with higher active listings, longer days on market, and buyers who have the room to negotiate and compare. In 2026, pricing discipline and property preparation determine outcomes more than timing or urgency.
What should sellers in Midland or Penetanguishene look for in a real estate agent?
Sellers in Midland and Penetanguishene should look for an agent who has sold through both the 2021 boom and the correction that followed. Experience in a single market condition is incomplete. Ask about pricing methodology, marketing investment, and how many recent sellers would hire the agent again. Track record across full market cycles matters more than transaction count in one strong year.
Is it still a good time to sell property in Simcoe County?
Properties in Simcoe County that are priced correctly and presented well are still selling in 2026. The difference from 2021 is that overpriced or underprepared listings sit rather than attracting competing offers. Sellers who work with an experienced agent and invest in preparation before going to market are achieving strong results.
Why does it matter that a real estate agent lives in the community they serve?
An agent who lives in Tiny Township, Midland, or Penetanguishene understands the market at a level that cannot be replicated from a distance. Local knowledge includes which streets carry municipal water versus well, which waterfront stretches face open Georgian Bay versus sheltered harbour, how property values shift between pockets, and what a septic system on a forty-year-old lot actually means for a transaction. That knowledge protects sellers from underpricing and buyers from surprises.
If you are considering selling property on Georgian Bay and want an honest read on where your home sits in this market, send a text to 705-433-2525 or reach out through the contact page. For sellers, a current opinion of value is always complimentary.
Keep reading
- What Should You Ask a Real Estate Agent Before Hiring One in Midland?
- This Week's Market Update
- Selling Waterfront Property in Tiny Township
By Jonathan Wallace, REALTOR®, Faris Team Real Estate, Brokerage. 705-433-2525. This editorial reflects the author's professional experience in the Georgian Bay and Simcoe County real estate market. Market conditions vary by property type, location, and timing. Consult directly for advice specific to your situation.