Toronto Homeowners Are Suddenly in a Rush to Sell

"We are seeing people who paid those crazy prices over the last few months walking away from their deposits," said Carissa Turnbull, a Royal LePage broker in the Toronto suburb of Oakville, who didn't get a single visitor to an open house on the weekend. "They don't want to close anymore."

Home Capital may be achieving what so many policy measures failed to do: cool down a housing market that soared as much as 33 percent in March from a year earlier. The run on deposits at the Toronto-based mortgage lender has sparked concerns about contagion, and comes on top of a new Ontario tax on foreign buyers and federal government moves last year that make it harder to get a mortgage.

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The fate of Home Capital, known as a "b-lender" because it caters to new immigrants and other homebuyers who can't get a traditional bank loan, remains in question. A run on deposits and stock plunge began late last month after regulators accused the company of misleading investors about potentially fraudulent mortgage applications.