The number of homes on the Toronto real estate market is starting to pile up.
Some of them are sitting there for longer.
The housing market data released by the Toronto Real Estate Board has over the past several weeks suggested that there are signs this city's skyrocketing housing market might be coming back to Earth.
More recently, some real estate brokers in the Greater Toronto Area have been sharing stories of empty open-houses and second-guessing buyers walking away from their deposits.
One agent who primarily serves the suburbs told Bloomberg News, "the frenzy is over ... sanity is returning to the marketplace."
Many experts say its too early to tell what affect government intervention has had on the housing market.
Since last fall, the Federal government raised the financial bar to land an insured mortgage.
The politicians at Queen's Park have promised a new, 15 percent tax on foreign buyers.
There are also plans for stricter controls on rent.
Mortgage broker Bruce Joseph of Anthem Mortgage believes those measures have had a cooling effect on transactions.
He's also not surprised to hear anecdotes of buyers' remorse and sellers left to wonder why bidding wars on real estate have suddenly, in some cases, tapered off.
Joseph believes many homeowners are now being "exhausted" by debt and have been forced into putting their properties on the market.
"If that happens in scale, you will see home prices fall," he says.
Joseph adds that's what might be compounding the stress on the real estate market is the cloudy financial future of one of Canada's biggest 'small' lenders.
It primarily serves borrowers who are self-employed or otherwise cannot prove a regular income.
Many of them are in the GTA.
Home Capital Group has been embroiled in a fiasco since 2015, when a whistle-blower accused some of the company's brokers of taking advantage of hot housing markets through fraudulent loans.
It was last month that regulators accused Home Capital of misleading investors about potentially fraudulent mortgage applications.
Not long after, the company experienced a run on its deposits and the company is now on life-support.
While the impact of Home Capital's ongoing financial troubles isn't clear, there's a sense among some in the lending sector that it has had an effect on consumer confidence.
"That's why we're following it so closely," Joseph says, "it will affect home prices if a company that size did teeter and eventually fall."
"Those borrowers would have to go to private lenders or there would be a major credit tightening," he adds.
"That would put a higher level of supply on the market from individuals currently with (Home Capital) who would have to sell."
Joseph says he's telling his clients they need to be prepared for just about anything, adding that now is the time for buyers to do their homework.
"I've been recommending anyone who has or is looking to get financing to make sure that they have the right type of leverage," he says.
Joseph suggests opting for a conventional mortgage, rather than a collateral mortgage, in which an amount higher than the actual loan may be put against the buyer's property.
"If home prices do for some reason fall, you want to make sure that as long as you pay your mortgage, the financial institution can do nothing to you," he says.