Issue No. 8
Peterborough, Ontario
We’ve had an unusual number of power of sales come across our desk lately. Something we simply weren’t seeing very often a few years ago. And on the other side of the summer, one question came up on just about every dock we stood on: is now the time to buy a cottage, or did that ship sail?
Two very different conversations, so we’ve given each one its own space this month.
Power of Sale: What We’re Actually Seeing
Our team has handled more power of sale files this year than we have in a long time, and the pace has picked up over the last couple of months.
Where they’re coming from
Most of them trace back to the same window. Between 2020 and the middle of 2022, money was close to free, and a lot of people stretched. Some bought more house than they needed. Some picked up a second property because the math looked easy at two percent. Then renewal came around at four, five, sometimes six, and a payment they’d budgeted for turned into one they couldn’t carry anymore.
You can see some of that pressure in the numbers. Ontario’s 90+ day mortgage delinquency rate rose to 0.27% in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from 0.20% a year earlier. Here in Peterborough, it increased from 0.19% to 0.25% over the same period. Consumer insolvencies have also climbed, reaching their highest quarterly level since 2009 in the first quarter of 2026.
Those numbers still represent a relatively small share of homeowners overall, so this isn’t a story of widespread mortgage defaults. But there are clearly more households under financial pressure, and from what we’re seeing firsthand, power of sale properties are becoming a more noticeable part of the market.
What a power of sale actually is
The plain version: when a borrower falls far enough behind, the lender has the right to sell the property to recover what it’s owed. It isn’t a foreclosure. The lender isn’t taking ownership, they’re selling on the owner’s behalf, and whatever is left after the debt and the costs goes back to the owner.
What matters for a buyer is that the seller is a bank, not a person. There’s nobody to tell you the furnace was replaced in 2019, or that the basement took water once in 2017. It sells as is, with almost no warranties or representations, and the lender’s legal obligation is to get fair market value.
The myth about buying one
Most people hear “power of sale” and think discount. That’s the biggest misconception we run into, and it’s usually wishful thinking. Lenders have a duty to get market value and they’ll wait to get it.
What you do get is a seller with no emotional attachment and a clean, predictable timeline. Sometimes the place has sat empty for months and needs work, and that’s where the actual room is, not in the label on the listing. If you’re going to look at one, budget for a proper inspection and budget for surprises. We’d tell you that about any purchase. Here it matters more.
And if you’re the one falling behind
This part is the reason we included any of this. If your renewal is coming and you already know the number doesn’t work, please don’t wait until the letters start showing up. There are almost always more options six months out than there are six weeks out. Sometimes it’s a refinance. Often it’s selling on your own terms, on your own timeline, with your own agent, which nearly always nets more than a lender-run sale does.
We’ve had this conversation quietly with a few families this year. It stays between us, it costs nothing, and the earlier it happens the better it tends to go.
Power of sale isn’t necessarily a good deal, and it doesn’t mean something has gone terribly wrong. It’s simply a process. On both sides of it, the people who come out best are the ones who get advice early.
Is Now a Good Time to Buy a Cottage in the Kawarthas?
Our honest answer is yes
This is the best buying position we’ve seen on recreational property in years, and we don’t say that lightly. Prices have come off the peak, there’s real inventory to choose from, and the frantic energy of 2021 is gone entirely. You can see a place twice. You can get a proper inspection. You can negotiate and not lose the property for asking.
One caution though. “Good time to buy” and “prices are about to take off” are two different statements, and only the first one is true right now. Don’t buy a cottage this year expecting to flip it in three. Buy it because you want to be on the water.
Why here and not somewhere else
Drive time, mostly. We’re roughly an hour and a half to two hours from the GTA. Muskoka and Haliburton are two to three. That sounds like a small difference until you’ve done the drive forty times in a summer with kids in the back seat.
The price gap is real too. Recreational waterfront across Ontario has been averaging north of $800,000, and there’s still good water here for well under that. And because our lakes sit on the Trent Severn, you get boating that actually goes somewhere instead of one lake you’ll have memorized by August.
What we’d actually have you looking at
Water depth off the end of the dock, and whether the bottom is sand, rock, or weed. Which way the lot faces, because west gets you sunsets and east has you in shade by four in the afternoon. Road access, and specifically who plows it in February. The age and location of the septic. Whether it’s a true year round place or you’re winterizing every October. And if there’s any chance you’d rent it out, check that township’s rules before you buy, not after.
Those things drive resale far more than the kitchen does.
The timing inside the timing
September and October are the sharpest weeks of the year to be shopping for this. The summer lookers are gone, anyone who listed back in May has now watched an entire season go past, and the colour coming in makes it a beautiful time to be driving lake roads anyway. Wait for spring and you’ll have fewer choices with more people standing beside you.
Thinking about it seriously? Call us and we’ll help you find the one that makes every summer better.
Market Insights | Peterborough
Here’s the most recent confirmed board data for the City of Peterborough, covering July. August numbers land mid September and we’ll have them for you next issue.
July Market Snapshot (City of Peterborough, 98 sales)
July was a solid month. Homes sold in an average of 28 days, down from 36 in June, and there were 325 places on the market against 360 at the same point last year. Prices barely moved, off 2.7 percent from last July, which after three years of dramatic headlines is close to boring. Nationally the MLS Home Price Index is down 3.3 percent over the same stretch, so we’re holding up a little better than the country as a whole.
August felt quieter to us on the ground, with fewer sales and inventory building back up. Some of that is just August being August. We’ll know for certain in a couple of weeks.
For sellers, the number you pick on day one is doing most of the work right now.
For buyers, there’s still real choice and real room to negotiate, especially on anything that’s been sitting since spring.
About the September Rate Decision
On September 2 the Bank of Canada held its key rate at 2.25 percent for the seventh decision in a row. Inflation has been sitting near 3 percent, mostly because of gas prices. Strip gasoline out and it’s 2.2, which is roughly where the Bank wants it. The economy picked up in the spring, but new U.S. tariffs got flagged as a real risk to that, and the Bank was clear it could move in either direction from here.
For anyone weighing a decision, we’d treat this as settled rather than pending. Rates have been flat for close to a year now, nobody is signalling a cut, and waiting for one has cost a lot of people a lot of choice over the last two years. The better question is whether the timing works for you. Next announcement is October 28.
Tip of the Month
Go See It in November
If you’re shopping for a cottage or anything rural, try to see the property once outside of summer. Everything looks good in August. The road you drove in on is dry and graded, the trees are full, the lake is warm, and the neighbours are on their best behaviour.
Go back in late fall and you’ll learn things the listing photos will never tell you. Whether the road is actually plowed or whether that’s a handshake arrangement between four neighbours. How much water sits in the driveway after a hard rain. Whether the place really works in the cold or whether it’s a May to October proposition. How dark and quiet it gets, which some people love and some people find unsettling.
Community Updates | Peterborough
This is our favourite stretch of the year around here. The summer crowds have thinned out, the water is still warm enough, and the colour is starting to come in along the back roads.
Kawartha Autumn Studio Tour, September 26. One of the best weekends on the calendar and the perfect excuse to spend a day driving concession roads. Local artists open up their studios across the region, and honestly the route is half the reason to go.
Peterborough Pride Parade and Pride in the Park, September 26. A great day downtown, and always one of the more joyful events of the year here.
The fall colour drives. Kawarthas Tourism maps out five different routes every year, and they’re well worth doing. “Fallin’ for Burleigh” runs about 97 kilometres and takes you up through some of the prettiest water in the county. “Leaf It To Lang” is a shorter one at 70 kilometres if you’ve only got a morning. Pack a thermos and go.
The farmers’ markets are still running. Both the Peterborough and District market and the Regional market go Saturday mornings well into the fall. September and October means apples, squash, late tomatoes, and the good baking.
Our Active Listings
A few of the properties we currently have available:
Full details and updates can always be found here: Our Listings
Looking Ahead
September and October are the busiest weeks left in the year, and they move fast. If you’re selling, the window is open now and it starts closing in early November. If you’re buying, whether that’s a house in town or a place on the water, the choice and the negotiating room you’ve had all summer are still here for a little while yet.
And if you’re somewhere in the middle of the harder version of all this, a renewal you’re dreading or a property you’re not sure you can hold onto, call us before it becomes urgent. We’ve helped a number of people through exactly that this year and there’s no cost to a conversation.
Call or text 705-243-9797, email team@jeffandkatie.ca, or visit jeffandkatie.ca. We’re always happy to give you a straight, honest read on where things stand.
Thanks for reading, and for being part of our community. See you next month!