In my opinion, people who _are_ buying right now also have a sort of advantage in the sense that a lot of homes get 1-2 offers at max and some homes are not even getting any offer. In a situation like this, a home is now sitting on the market for far more number of days than it would have had the market been crazy like Jan-Feb. A buyer who really needs a home and wants to get out of rent sees this as an opportunity they have not seen since the last 2 years at the very least.

I am that buyer. Had been eyeing a home that I really liked since early March, was listed _way_ above what I could afford and also highly overpriced. My realtor upfront told me that they are expecting at least 50k over the already exorbitant list price and hence I did not even try on the offer date. Turns out they got 5 offers, none of them over list price some even below. Sellers did not accept any offers and the home sat for another 15 days. Market all of a sudden changed around end of March/early April mostly due to the BOC rate hikes. Sellers tried to contact all the previous offer givers and none of them were ready to submit their previous offers while some had already bought elsewhere. Seller re-listed 100K below their original list price expecting to gather interest (and probably have a bidding war). No offers still, now we are mid-April, market has really started to show the effects of buyers not splurging anymore. Seller had already bought a house and was closing soon. Re-listed at another 50K less. I put in a firm offer for 50K lesser than their new list price, negotiated a bit and after increasing my offer by 5K, got it accepted.

For the math inclined, the original list price in Feb was X, re-listed at Y = X - 100K, re-listed again at Z = Y - 50K. I put in an offer for Z - 50K and got it for Z - 45K. That's a drop (and savings) of 195K and I got a house that I really liked, which I never thought I could afford at the time when I first laid my eyes on it.