A Toronto home listed for sale multiple times in the same year, and now selling way below its original price demonstrates just how much prices fluctuate in the city's real estate market amid higher borrowing costs and affordability issues. 

The detached home in question, situated just between Brockton Village and Little Italy at 61 Shannon St., was originally listed for a staggering $5,398,880 in January 2023. 

🚨 POWER OF SALE OF THE DAY 🚨

"Total Decimation in Trinity-Bellwoods" 😱

📍Toronto, ON 🇨🇦

In 2020, investors bought this home in Trinity-Bellwoods for $2M and sunk hundreds of thousands into it. They listed at a fanciful $5.4M at the beginning of this year.

No takers 🚫,… pic.twitter.com/KNMXvLUQa2

— Shazi (@ShaziGoalie) January 9, 2024

According to the listing, the four-bedroom, six-bathroom home boasts an open-concept kitchen, marble fireplace, rooftop balcony, custom wet bar, sauna, as well as a sprawling garden suite. 

Since January 2023, the property has been listed and re-listed several times at various price points. In April, the home knocked roughly $400,000 off its price when it was listed for $4,988,800, and saw a further reduction in June when it was listed at $4,589,999. 

Shouldn’t this be 1.4-ish? 3.6m for a reno’d 1950s bungalow seems insane even now. What sales would be the comparables on it to justify the ask? Or is 3.6 the mortgage amount

— domineur Inc. 🇨🇦 (@DomineurInc) January 9, 2024

With no takers, the home was eventually re-listed in August for $3,998,800, roughly $1.4 million below its original asking price. On Monday, the home was officially re-listed for a fourth time as a "power of sale" at $3,599,900 — approximately $1.8 million below what it was originally listed for just a year earlier.

A power of sale, which differs from a regular home sale, is typically the most common mortgage remedy used by mortgagees of land in Ontario.

I look at the pics first and guess the price. I thought 2.2m. I almost choked when I saw they wanted 5m

— Silver Wizard (@Behindthe_Blow) January 9, 2024

When a borrower fails to uphold the terms of the mortgage, a power of sale can be used by the lender to force a sale on the public market to get all the funds owed to them, while the current owner keeps any excess profit. 

In a foreclosure scenario, the lender usually takes ownership and gets to keep all the profits from the sale. 

Homes in Ontario are selling for way below asking and here's where prices are lowest 😬https://t.co/IHBw7ozFkl #Toronto #TorontoRealEstate

— blogTO (@blogTO) October 14, 2023

According to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board's (TRREB) latest report, most of the demand for housing in the GTA was pointed at the rental market in 2023. The number of GTA home sales last year actually came in at less than 70,000, all thanks to "affordability issues brought about by high mortgage rates." 

The average selling price for all home types in 2023 was $1,126,604, representing a 5.4 per cent decline compared to 2022. There were also 65,982 home sales reported through TRREB's MLS System in 2023 – a 12.1 per cent dip compared to 2022. 

"Buyers who were active in the market benefitted from more choice throughout 2023. This allowed many of these buyers to negotiate lower selling prices, alleviating some of the impact of higher borrowing costs," said TRREB Chief Market Analyst Jason Mercer.

"Assuming borrowing costs trend lower this year, look for tighter market conditions to prompt renewed price growth in the months ahead."