Thursday, March 1, 2007

Market Up? Market Down?

As a buyer, do you want the market to go up, or go down? I can't come up with a good answer to this question. I'd think I'd want some stability more than anything because I'd need to have my purchase validated. Ideally, I'd buy today and see steady growth; that's not how markets usually work though.

Worst case scenario? I buy today and then the market consistently goes down. Like any market related activity, you buy low and sell high. But in most markets, you don't have to live in what you buy. So... where am I going with this? No idea at all. Kind of like trying to figure out where we're at in this crazy market now. Everyday I hope we're seeing top and confirm my gut that we should wait to buy until its economically feasible, or at least corrected for a while and then began to climb again.

VREB numbers for February are out:

Listings: Feb 2007 (2,919) Feb 2006 (2,320) % change (26+)
Sales: Feb 2007 (707) Feb 2006 (658) % change (7+)
Listings to sales ratio: Feb 2007 (4.13) Feb 2006 (3.53) % change (1.17-) or in other words: monthly inventory has increased by over one month's supply; correct me if I am wrong, but this is a significant increase in inventory.
January to February sales: Feb 2007 (707) Jan 2007 (442) % change (63+)

[looking at my numbers from a previous post on the least expensive homes and condos]
SFH under 425K LtoSratio: (2.8 ) Condos under 250K LtoSratio: (3.5)
This keeps in line with least expensive category still being more competitive compared to market as a whole.

SFH average price change: (0.13%) or negligible growth because of several $1M + sales
Condos average price change: (8%-) 8% decline doesn't seem like a solid market for condos, especially considering that is percent decline compared to previous 6 months' average.
Townhomes average price change: (3%+) modest growth.

"The average price of single family homes sold in Greater Victoria last month was $534,101; the average for the last six-months was $527,103. The median was lower at $472,000. The average price of all condominiums sold in February was $283,246; the average for the last six months was $305,635. The median was again lower at $263,750. The average price of townhomes sold last month was $387,281; the average for the last six months was $376,639. The median was $370,000.

MLS® sales last month included 372 single family homes, 211 condominiums, 63 townhomes and 17 manufactured homes."

You can see the graphs here.

As always, I'm no economist, and not very good at math, so please pick my posting apart... I could use the education.

1 comment:

Village said...

I have to say, I was surprised by the numbers. I figured that they would have been down over last year. Guess there's more gas left in the consumers tank.

Still I expect that inventory will continue up and that should put a cap on prices. Once it's obvious prices won't be gaining double digits a year. Those speculators in the market should start selling pushing prices down.