The difference between a seller's market, a balanced market and a buyer's market in Victoria seems to be about 1000 available units - under 3500 units (seller's with rising prices), 3500 to 4000 (balanced, with flat to slight rise) and 4000+ (buyer's with negative price pressure mounting over time) - in the peak selling months of April, May and June. The market will bleed listings for the rest of the year, most likely at the same rate as it loses buyers. The sales to active listings ratio will likely remain below 20% keeping us safely in buyer's market territory even as total listings volumes drop.
There are approximately 152,482 occupied private dwellings in the Greater Victoria area. Current active listings number 4435 or 3% of total. Approximately 3% to 4% of Victoria housing stock is bought and sold each year. I did a quick comparison to another real estate obsessed city, Vancouver, to find that our market turnover numbers are extremely close (within 1%).
Do we have a small market - meaning a small number of units changing hands setting the market each year? If so, does this skew the true market value? I'm willing to bet that if these two questions are answered affirmatively, the same forces that skew on the upside will skew on the downside, likely to a very similar degree. Get ready for falling average prices, they are almost guaranteed for the rest of 2010, because the spring selling period is over, and it wasn't a good one.
103 comments:
Some early indicators of this HHV just in this morning:
8 SOLD Listings
3 in Victoria
2 in Saanich West
3 in Saanich East
Average sale price? $474,500!!
The highest price in Gorge area of SW at $575K down to the lowest in Quadra SE at $390K.
Out of these 8 listings, 5 have suites, one has "Suite Potential", one "almost a suite with bath, rec room, roughed in kitchen and separate entrance already in place. One lonely house on Jasmine with no suite sold for $400K down from $439K.
The writing is on the wall.
I would be interested to hear from someone who has direct information related to up-island market also. We drove down from Courtenay yesterday on the inland highway and were shocked at the number of for-sale signs (mostly ocean-front properties). I take it the rest of the island is leading us.
Olives,
Here is some information concerning up island stats. High inventory and low sales.
http://www.coastrealty.com/pages
/market_stats/pdf_links/
Condominium sales and prices are down 34 and 4 percent respectively from last month.
Looking at the year to year figures, the volume of condo sales in the core municipalities is down 44 percent with prices down less than 1 percent from this same time period last year.
The months of inventory of condominiums in the core municipalities is now 6.36 and the Sales to New Listings ratio is 0.78
Generally, 3 to 6 months and a sales to new listing ratio between 0.4 to 0.6 is considered a balanced market between buyers and sellers. Inventory in excess of 6 months and a sale to new-listing ratio greater that 0.6 indicate a market in favor of buyers or a "bear" market.
As demonstrated above, characteristics of a bear market are typically declining sale volumes and prices.
From this time period - but two years ago in 2008. Prices are up 3.5 percent but the number of sales are down 31 percent.
Three years ago (2007)
Volume is down 52%
Prices are up 7.7%
-----------------------
at some point between 3 and 4 years ago, if you had bought a condo - you could now sell the home and break even after adding in the costs of ownership
-----------------------------------
Four years ago (2006)
Volume down 30%
Prices up 20.5 percent
Five years ago (2005)
volume down 41%
Prices up 43.5%
six years ago (2004)
volume down 29%
Price up 77%
seven years ago (2003)
volume down 43%
price up 99%
eight years ago (2002)
Volume down 17%
prices up 128%
nine years ago (2001)
Volume UP 15%
Price UP 163%
---------------------------
Between Nine and eight years ago was the last time that the volume of condominium sales were as low as they are today. Which was the same time that the US crashed the interest rates in order to stimulate demand after the Dot Com bubble and 9/11. Over the next decade interest rates were pushed lower and lower and the price of housing went higher and higher.
Today, more Canadians own the home they live in, than at any other time in history. And more Canadians own more than one home, than at any time in history. And Canadians now have more debt than at any time in history.
HHV,
You are spot on with your comments. Here are the July-to-date stats.
Total MLS Sales: 385
New Listings: 913
Active MLS Listings: 4,435
Here is a graph of weekly sales and new listings over the last six months. - click here. One can see on the graph that July sales were much lower than June. Sales should be around 500 for the entire month which is way down from the 933 in July 2009.
Sales and new listings have been on a downward trend since mid-May. This is clearly shown by this graph which is calculated every Monday using the preceding 4 weeks of data. 4 week sales & new listings - click here
Sales are slumping quickly but the number of active listings is not dropping and has plateaued. You can see this clearly by clicking here.
One indicator of market pressure is Months-of-Inventory. We calculate this every week and it has been rising steadily and is now close to 9 months. You can see this and other ratios by
clicking here.
*** all graphs generated in our office using VREB stats.
What about prices? Agents are reporting that they are having to reduce prices in order to get a sale. For example, in Saanich (East,West & Central) over 50% of the listings currently have one or more price reductions. Those with price reductions are outselling those without by a ratio of 4:1.
Many posters have reported significant "haircuts" on properties all over town. This will result in the sale-price to list-price ratio to be off considerably in July. In a balanced market this stat is around 97% and will be much lower than that this month.
In recent months the average and median price reported by VREB have not shown much of a drop. How can this be? It is important to understand that the average sales price reported by VREB every month does not accurately reflect what is happening to the market value of houses in a given area. The average sales price is simply obtained by dividing the total dollar value of all sales by the number of units sold. The number of sales at the various price levels drastically affects the average price. If Victoria had a House Price Index (HPI) like Vancouver or the one calculated by Teranet we could see the market changes clearly because this stat is based on resales of the same or similar properties in a given area.
So in Victoria the VREB reported average sale price and median price are affected significantly by the mix of properties currently being sold, especially in slow sales months like December. Many first time buyers have been shut out of the market by recent changes to the mortgage rules and changes in interest rates. This means that the mid and high end homes are now a higher percentage of total sales than in the spring. The shortage of low end sales skews the average sale price and median prices up. The sale of waterfront and high end properties will taper off in the coming months due to seasonal factors. As a consequence you can expect significant drops in average and median prices in the second half of 2010.
You bring up a good point Double Agent. The VREB has no incentive to change the way they report average prices; it's to their advantage not to. Not only would it mean having to reeducate the general public as reported average prices "fall" drastically while market values don't, but the skewing of market data is almost exclusively to the upside as dollar values outstrip volumes.
It would take a significant amount of low end sales to drag the average down in the same way that a couple of dozen $1M + sales drags the average up or keeps it flat when market prices are in fact falling - that's why you never see an explanation like "the lack of multi-million dollar sales this month is to blame for the reduction in the average price."
If we had credible journalists working the real estate beat in this city, they'd report on this and ask questions like:
1. Why don't you use a house price index as other real estate boards like Vancouver do to more accurately represent the true market value fluctuations in the local market of a given housing unit?
2. If you're not going to switch to an HPI, why won't you exclude acreages and waterfront properties from your reporting areas as other jurisdictions do? Don't these property types realistically fit into a different market altogether, as they appeal to a completely different type of buyer than those typically buying and selling residential housing units?
Personally, I'd love to hear the VREB's answers to those questions.
HHV said,
If you're not going to switch to an HPI, why won't you exclude acreages and waterfront properties from your reporting areas as other jurisdictions do?
They do this calculation and report it every month in the detailed stat package which is not available to the public. Only the realtors, industry insiders and CMHC get this report. The public is given the mushroom version which includes all SFH. In June the overall SFH average was $649,280. The non-waterfront, non acreage average was $586,417.
Here is an excerpt from the June report. It clearly shows how high end homes skew up the overall average. Residential, waterfront and acreage sales data. I think you will find the other stats interesting and will quickly figure out why they don't want the public to see the rest of the data.
Here are the Months-of-Inventory (MOI) stats for June based on the categories in my last post.
Residential (non-waterfront or acreage) - 5.67
Residential waterfront - 17.56
Residential acreage - 14.1
Yep - it's going to get ugly...
Wow, that is a lot of information. I must say it really solidifies my views on the market. Thank you
Double Agent, any way of getting my hands on that report every month short of taking a licensing course? Say, like, I don't know, perhaps, maybe, if I ask real nice like, you, or someone in your office, could include my e-mail address in a bulk mail out? ;-)
BTW, thanks. Awesome info, and confirms my suspicions that the VREB didn't want us to see the real picture, untarnished by luxury anyway.
Double agent: To make the big picture much clearer, could you break those MLS sales and listings stats up into the two categories of SFH and condominiums?
My areas of interest have shown a fair amount of sales activity (albeit with huge price reductions), in the past 10 days in SFH but virtually no sales in the condo market.
Alexandrahere,
Unfortunately it is not a simple as just splitting the data into SFH and condos. The SFH category is subdivided in the database into waterfront, residential, acreage, duplex, triplex etc. Aggregating these every week would be a lot of work. Sorry but it takes a lot of effort every Monday just to crank out the sales, new and active listings weekly graphs.
Double-Agent:
Welcome back from vacation - it hope it was a great break for you.
I do very much appreciate the efforts you make to bring us this unbiased data.
Yesterday I posted the July sales-to-date as 385. Given that weekly sales have been averaging around 120 we can expect about 510 sales for the month. This is pretty dismal but I am already hearing agents say that comparison to last year is not reasonable since it was an outstanding year.
Wishful thinking doesn't change the stats. 2010 will be the worst July for Greater Victoria MLS sales in the last nine years.
Click here for the facts
Double Agent, the VREB said the same thing in August of 2008 - "you can't compare it to 2007 because 2007 was an outstanding/exceptional year." I seem to recall they went back to the 1990s to give a "more accurate" example of "normal demand."
They are always happy to play up trumped up sales volume when its in their favour but never willing to accept the reality the market wasn't experiencing "pent up demand" so much as it was borrowing from future demand.
It is too bad that sellers are either too ignorant or don't care about what the market prices are. No wonder there are such few sales.
If I was selling my place, I would be checking PCS every single day to see what comparable places are selling for (and be following this blog), and ask slightly less than comparables.
It is mind boggling that there are places out there that have been on the market from 8 months or longer (and some empty!!)
look what i woke up to this morning on my MSN Messenger
http://imgur.com/WzTB1.png
link to properties
Still overpriced, can buy cheaper per sq/ft at the Bayview or Falls.
Just got back from Alberta and honestly anyone who claims Victoria sucks hasn't been out to see the rest of Canada in a while. Alberta is cold as heck in the winter and everything is brown with a dusting of snow from October to May. Sure you get sunshine but it's minus 15.
It's also flat as a pancake and outside of Edmonton there's not many trees. There's also a serious lack of good lakes and recreation areas which is why Albertans flock to the Okanagan every summer.
In Victoria it rains a fair amount in the winter but it doesn't get that cold and I find I can still do many outdoor activities all year round like hiking and biking. We have many, many great outdoor recreation areas just short distances away like Shawnigan lake for water skiing, thetis, elk, beaver, langford, durance, and glen lake for swimming and fishing. Countless beautiful hiking areas. A nice waterfront to walk along. The list goes on. In Albeta you've got endless fields of nothing, a few rivers and a cold ass winter.
I think Alberta would be a great place to move to if you want to spend your life driving around to various strip malls and to and from work every day. Can't speak for the rest of Canada but I bet you Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan are very similar. The maritimes are probably much like Victoria but a little colder.
^Welcome back Troll!
Of all the cities in Canada, Victoria is the 15th largest in population. People have voted on the desirability of their city by where they live.
If you live in the "right" parts of town, Victoria is a pretty city. As in Vancouver, if you live in Point Grey you will have a different perception of the city than if you live in the downtown east side. It also depends on your personal economics and stage of your life. So, I'm wondering if "Fairfield" lived near Quadra and Hillside and was feeding a family on minimum wage if they would have the same perception of Victoria.
There is not a "perfect" city. One has to trade off one thing to get another.
But it isn't the weather, or the cleanliness of the streets - its the people that make a city great. I find that those who move here and define themselves by the homes they live in, have a difficulty in meeting people and developing friendships.
These people stay a couple of years before they are once again on their way to another city. There biggest complaint being that its difficult to make friends in Victoria.
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So true Jack. Pretty well everyone I have met from the Maritimes have said the same thing. As much as they have a better job here than they can get back home, they feel painfully lonely and end up going back home.
Living in Ontario for a few years, I made many friends in just a short time. Even in the big cities people are just more friendly and are open to making new acquaintances.
What Fairfield says is mostly true.
I moved here 12 years ago from lowermainland and wife is from Victoria. We will retire in victoria in about 5-6 years. Hope to buy a place in the next 2 years.
Alberta is good for 6 months and sucks for the other 6 weather wise.
But kids love it, I never made so much money, we live very comfortable compared to when we were in lowermainland. If I could get the same job in Victoria, I would be there tomorrow.
we come to victoria 2-3 times a year and we have money to do things but friends don't, most are all paycheque to paycheque, mortgaged to the hilt, have borrowed against their house.
Same for my freinds in lowermainland. Housing is everything.
i don't regret the move here as it is best for the family and its only a hour to fly to van or vic.
Dave#1
Dave,
before you move here do your research. I live in south Oak Bay (retiree central) and have observed the same little houses being resold year fter year. There is always a flood of out of town retirees going over these shacks, and eventuallly another moves in.. for a year or two. Always the same story about how alone they are here, and how far they are from thier families and then the little shack hits the market again.
Despite the lack of volume and the steady sales at the low end of the SFH market, some properties are still taking a haircut. Like this one, sold for $54,000 less than assessed value.
Orillia, is a home with most of its value in the 50 feet wide by 202 feet deep lot.
The home had sold back in 2004 for $253,000. Since then, the typical home prices has increased some 61 percent which would be today about $407,000.
So this property took a nice hair cut of $37,000 or some 10 percent because of the decreased demand for properties heavily weighted in lot value.
This could have been the only offer presented on the property in the 50 days it was on the market.
Perception plays a pivotal role in market value. Just as when the market was going up in price, the last sale on the street sets a new benchmark for future sales.
So now, what do you think the neighbor across the street on a 50' x 120 foot lot thinks has happened to his house value?
The one thing you do not want to have is a property heavily weighted in land value. So, the demand for those 2-bedroom 800 square foot homes in Oak Bay is going to be near non existent.
A nice one to watch is 2054 Meadow, its been up for sale for 64 days at $499,900. At 805 square feet, the home is too small for a middle income household and too expensive for a starter home. The property falls between the cracks of the two target markets. So I'm guessing a $90,000 hair cut on this one is in order.
Time will tell.
29 of the last 108 house sales (27 percent) in urban Victoria sold under their assessed value.
38 out of 108 sold within 5% of there assessed value. (35%)
The extremes ends showed one property selling at 29 percent below assessed value and one property selling 51.7 percent above the assessed value.
So how often are the assessments within 10 percent or $100,000 of the sale price - 45 percent of the time.
Now, if you were lending money to a person buying a home
- would you loan your personal money based on the assessed value?
-would you loan a stranger's money if you got the loan insured through CMHC?
Anyone still wonder how the market got so over priced.
how about this gem on Estevan that recently went up:
2407 Estevan Ave
Assessed at $595K
Asking price is $940K
Yup...58% above assessed.
That block of Estevan is not so nice and is busy with beach traffic all day long.
I hope these folks are patient.
"So I'm guessing a $90,000 hair cut on this one is in order."
$410,000 would be way too much for this property...already looked into it. Maybe $350,000 in my opinion?
Just Jack ... I just wanted to respond to your comments about Victoria. I was born and raised in Victoria, living here for 40+ years. I've traveled some too - and each time I come back to Victoria, I realize how stunning our city is.
That said, I agree that although people are superficially friendly, they are very reluctant to "open up" and establish lasting friendships. When I was 17, I traveled for a year to Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. The people I met in other parts of Canada were much more friendlier than here. This was most noticible when I returned from my travels!
On the other hand, I have lived on the same cul-de-sac in Saanich for the past 18 years (rented for 10 years, then bought the house 8 years ago). All the neighbours know each other, talk over the fence and our kids play together. On Canada Day we have a block party, set up our BBQ's in the street and play road hockey.
A community is what you make of it. Get involved, greet your neighbours, take the time to slow down and care about your fellow human beings.
Having been born and raised part of my childhood in Europe, I can attest to one of the reasons why it is not easy to make long term friends in Victoria, or many other Canadian cities for that matter.
People here move all the time! The country is huge, and it's typical for kids to move out after high school and go study at some foreign university elsewhere in the country or even abroad. And then when they are graduated, they move to whichever city offers them a good job, and then possibly move again a few more times if the wife they met at a bar was from yet another city, or they have a career change within a few years or get a promotion at the national company, etc. Another reality is that the cost of living in general is superior to a lot of other countries, so people can afford (until recently anyway) to buy and sell real estate as if transaction costs were almost insignificant (even though I cringe at the thought of giving an RE "expert" $25K for 25 hours or less of work)
The really nice thing about Europe is that even if your best friends end up moving to another city, due to so many of the countries being so much smaller, most of them are but a couple of hours drive or train ride away. Also, possibly with a few exceptions like Spain and UK, most of the countries did not go through housing bubbles, and people aren't as fixated with real estate as here in North America.
Lastly, and perhaps this is starting to change in the past 10 years with the European Union and easy to cross boarders, each country had/has its own very destinct culture. When the vast majority of people think alike and were raised in the same way with the same language, etc, it's much easier to make friends. Canada is the land of immigrants, and the melting pot of the world. We're doing a pretty great job at being polite to each other and keeping our culture shocks in check, but due to everyone's different backgrounds, it's a lot tougher to feel a deep connection with that family you just met at the neighbourhood BBQ yesterday.
There ain't no perfect place in the world, or else we'd all be there ;-)
Mr.4AM
Best of all worlds is to spend winter in US. I love summer in BC & Alberta, but nobody should have to live here Oct to March. Now that you can pick up a nice place for 50-100k in States, i'm noticing in my circles more are considering buying US winter homes and then just renting or rv'ing Canadian summer.
Mr4AM,
you bring up an interesting point about European RE. Many people in many countries in Europe view renting as superior to owning there. Britain and Spain went through bubbles, primarily because of the Brits who were buying and selling in both countries. The continentals, especially those in the older, more settled communities, live in long term, often rent-controlled, rental housing units. Getting mortgages is a lot more difficult to get than in Canada.
Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up. Here's a piece of advice you won't often get from your REALTOR®:
When your condo doesn't sell in 3 months time and you've already dropped the price almost $40K, you should raise your price by $15K to make people believe the price of real estate always goes up in Victoria.
"Build it - and they will come"
But, once its built will they go?
California is paying a big price for its real estate boom. Construction jobs swelled in the cities, as the rural areas of the state drew people into the city for well paying jobs. Now, those construction related jobs have dwindled and unemployment in the cities has gone to 15%.
In Victoria, as in other cities that had a construction boom, some 40% of the jobs created are related to the building trades. And those workers bought homes and have super size mortgages in Victoria.
So what is going to happen to Victoria, now that new construction is on the downslide. California - but without the warm winters.
A prominent, professional realtor in Victoria thinks people are misinterpreting the state of the real estate market in Victoria.
Fred Carver Blog
Fred redefines how MOI is calculated using year-to-date stats, cherry picks the areas, ignores townhouse sales etc. etc. Even the definition of sales is changed from the one used by VREB.
Victoria - even though sales have slowed the current MSI indicates Victoria is in a Sellers Market...
Are his comments nonsense or is he just living in denial?
Fred,
Welcome to the blog... I suggest you read the comments from the other posters. You will find that several of us have access to the local real estate stats and we provide up-to-date analysis of houses, condos, towns etc.
Inventory has been consistently high in all categories and sales have been dropping steadily every month. Lets take a look at single family homes in May and June. These are excerpts from the VREB detailed stats report for May and June.
May Single Family Homes
June Single Family Homes
Here is the Months-Of-Inventory (MOI) for each category
Residential (non-waterfront or acreage) - 4.36 in May and 5.67 in June
Residential waterfront - 15.0 in May and 17.56 in June
Residential acreage - 11.13 in May and 14.1
You can clearly see that MOI has been rising and I expect July to be higher because sales will be much lower and inventory has only dropped slightly. Speaking of sales we only had 385 total MLS pending sales as of Monday. I expect the board to report about 510 for the month which is far less than last month (625) and last July's 933. In fact total MLS sales will be at the lowest level in the 2002-2010 period click here.
Fred as you know price reductions are coming in droves. I did an analysis of homes in Saanich (East, West & Central) and found 53% of the single family homes had one or more price reductions. The ones with price reductions were outselling the non-reduced by a ratio of 4 to 1. This is hardly a sellers market.
It is my belief that professional realtors should recognize that the boom is over and advise their clients to be realistic. Sellers need to lower their price expectation and buyers need to consider that prices have levelled off in many areas and are falling in others. I expect more price drops in the second half of the year.
I've now written 3 separate responses to Fred that I can't publish.
*slaps forehead*
*shakes head*
WTF is up with Fred.
FYI commentators, careful what you say. Fred has had online impersonators in the past and I don't know if this one commenting here is the real one or not, but his crap-ass website and latest post sure speaks volumes for his abilities and ethics no?
Thank you Double Agent for bringing the truth to light and responding in a way that I would not be able to.
I've let Fred know that I will be submitting a complaint to the VREB and BCREA for his misrepresentation of the VREB MLS data. As far as I can tell, Fred has taken the total MLS sales, including pendings that may not close before the end of July and applied that number as "sales" versus the scaled-down SFH listings for a core area that excludes some regions of the VREB (namely Sooke and the Gulf Islands) to come up with his mythical MOI/MSI number.
I fully expect Fred to try to make his misleading blog postings disappear, so I've taken screen captures of them. If any of you wish to make additional complaints to the VREB or BCREA because of Fred's misconduct, please feel free to contact me and I will email you the screen shots.
If someone reads what Fred writes on these blogs, looks at his website and still uses him as their realtor they deserve to be swindled.
Can any of you find any articles in the REALTOR® Code of Ethics that deals with what Fred has done? I can't. They talk about false and misleading advertising related to property listings but never discuss false and misleading advertising on the Internet by making false and misleading claims about the state of the market.
I'd like to say I'm surprised by this, but unfortunately that's not the case.
You've resulted to reading the Realtor code of ethics? Hahahahahahaha! For some other popular fiction titles head over to the Fraser Institute website.
Wow...second post and already threats of litigation.
Pretty negative for a follower of "The Laws of Attraction".
Fred, what have I said that is libelous?
You have misrepresented the facts. It's been demonstrated here how you've misrepresented the facts.
Nothing that has been said here or on your blog has done anything other than point out how you've misrepresented the VREB MLS data to paint a picture of the market that doesn't exist.
Libel chill will not work on me. You will be free to take it up with your professional associations should they choose to respond to my complaints.
Double-Agent,
I have a question for you. When I select pending sales for the month of Jan. using my MLS Matrix I get 411 results, VREB reported 418?
I am trying to figure out how accurate are this morning pending sales are using my Realtor Matrix. July 1st to this morning we have 456 pending sales? Are we going to even break 500?
Thanks, Marko
I calculate my stats in a highly similar manner as shown on that other persons site. Where I differ is on the months of inventory that constitutes a seller, buyer or balanced market.
I have never found any published articles that support that other persons claim as to how many months of inventory is a bear, balanced or bull market. But that okay, because the other person calls his MSI which I have never read before either.
Having said the above, as long as you are consistent in your method of calculating MOI, the trend analysis will still be accurate.
Now I really don't like it when people come out rattling their sabers. Especially by those who do not know the difference between slander and libel. I've watched enough Perry Mason shows to know that there have been no injurious statements, at this time, made by EITHER party.
As for copywriter infringement, I don't find anything that person has written would be considered "original" to him. All he has done is regurgitated published data. And I assume that he has written permission from the originators of the information to publish this data?
The problem with sabers - is that they cut both ways.
I believe in free speech - and I support it with my check book.
Fred, deal with the issue.
You've taken market-wide MLS sales and pending sales over a period of months for all home types and applied them against the total SFH listings for an area that isn't quite market-wide that only includes data from this month. How you think that paints an accurate picture of the current state of the market is beyond comprehension.
What you've done is exactly what your own local real estate board, the VREB, avoids doing each month when they release their public version of the MLS sales and listings data. The VREB reports sales as completed sales only, not completed plus pending. By combining the two, you are in-effect double counting pending sales from the last week or two of each month as they typically complete in the following months.
Each month, the reported completed sales, reported as "sales" by the VREB, includes pending sales from previous month(s) that complete this month. That's why they don't report pending sales plus completed sales as "sales" and isolate "sales" as completed sales only. Pending doesn't mean completed, pending sales could fall through, and we both know in this market there are pending sales not completing.
I believe you are improperly applying two non-equal sets of market data to paint an inaccurate picture of the SFH market in what you define as a core area of Victoria. Pick one equal set of data to compare accurately and I will stop writing about this issue.
If you want to compare sales to listings to get a MOI/MSI for a subset of the market, then you must use the subset completed sales numbers against the subset of total active listings numbers, and you can't include pending sales because there is no way to publicly verify if they've been counted more than once in the data from one month to the next.
Double Agent has demonstrated above, using VREB MLS data that was current to July 26, 2010, how you've incorrectly calculated the MOI/MSI. Are you saying his data is wrong and his charts are wrong? Could you show us, in coherent terms, how this is the case please?
My issue is simple: the MOI/MSI number you've calculated is inaccurate as outlined in the above commentary(s). Correct it, and I will consider the issue over.
Alternatively, you can continue to argue your case, but argue by explaining why your method is the more accurate one and expect questions and arguments as to why it's not to continue. Let's deal with this issue on a proper statistical basis, OK?
Marko,
The sales reported by VREB every month are pending sales. A listing changes from active to pending status once an offer to purchase becomes unconditional (i.e. all conditions removed). The actual date the property is sold (title transfer) is recorded but not used for sales stat purposes.
Now to address your question as to why the numbers are different from the reported Jan. numbers when you query the database. There are several reasons for discrepancy.
- A deal may fall through even though the offer went unconditional. The buyer may have backed out even though they could lose their deposit and face legal action. There might have been a problem with the title and the deal collapsed or the financing fell apart.This causes a negative discrepancy.
- Agents are required to report a pending sale within a few days of the offer going unconditional. Some are tardy and when they get around to updating the listing status VREB has already released the published stats. This causes a positive discrepancy.
I hope this helps..
Double Agent,
Clearly my understanding of "completed" and "pending" sales as I've described above is inconsistent with what you've just written. Can you please correct me?
HHV,
In order for real estate sales stats to be an effective tool they need to reflect current market conditions. You can see in my previous post that VREB sales stats are based on pending sales not completed sales. The reason for this is that it can take months from the time an offer goes unconditional until the deal is closed and the title/money transfer takes place. As you point out anyone doing real estate stats analysis should use only one category of sales - pending or closed. To do otherwise can lead to serious errors.
On another note readers should know that the months-of-inventory (MOI) is a lagging indicator of market activity. For example by the time the MOI exceeds 6, which is the common threshold for a buyers market, those market conditions have already existed for a couple of months. Price reductions are a leading indicator of market conditions because they reflect what sellers need to do in order to get a sale. Conversely, when multiple offers start occurring this is a leading indicator for a sellers market.
Thanks for the clarification Double Agent.
BCREA seems to have a different point of view than Fred...
BCREA Quarterly report
A larger inventory of homes for sale has created the most favourable conditions for home buyers in more than a year,” added Muir. “However, the buyers’ market is expected to be short-lived as total active listings peaked in May and are beginning to wane, with more balanced conditions set to emerge in the fall.
Evey forecast Cameron Muir has made in the last few years only lasts a few weeks before it is revised. He is always overly optimistic and uses the same playbook that the NAR did in the US before their crash.
To me, its about a 'meeting of the minds'
I use pending sales, as they give a snap shot of activity in the market. It doesn't matter that the sale collapsed for personal reasons of one or the other party. What you had was on that date two individuals came to an agreement on market price. I'm not saying that this is market value - because one sale does not make a market. But what it does show is how "active" the market was during that period of time.
Generally, it is a non issue as subject removals are done quickly in Victoria, so the net difference in pending sales for the month before and the month after become insignificant as they will, for the most part cancel each other out. By using both pending and completed sales, you also get a larger pool of data - and that will improve accuracy.
But once more, it doesn't matter when you are looking at market trends as long as you are consistent from one month to the next in your calculations.
So, I do my analysis differently than some of the others on this blog - but we get the SAME answers. And there is nothing wrong with two or more people looking at the raw data from different angles, as it strengthens the conclusion.
On another note. I'm trying to find a phrase for the opposite of "irrational exuberance" Anyone have Allan Greenspans phone number?
*Popcorn*
The angst of realtors and their wishful thinking is understandable. Commissions are way down from last year and have been dropping rapidly in recent months. This can be seen by looking at VREB's monthly report for total dollar sales volume.
May 2009 - 413 million
May 2010 - 352 million (down 15% YOY)
June 2009 - 447 million
June 2010 - 310 million (down 31% YOY & 12% from May)
July 2009 - 434 million
July 2010 - 260 million est. (down 40% YOY & 16% from June)
Commissions run about 3.5% of total dollar volume based on the 6-7% on 1st 100K and 3% on the balance. The buying and selling agents only get a portion of the gross commission pool with the remainder going to their brokers. Out of this they have to pay their fixed expenses such as desk and license fees, listing costs, fuel, advertising etc. Some are pretty hungry right now and even the top producers are feeling the pinch.
I don't use the closing date. I'm use pending and conditional sale dates.
It does get confusing as there can be so many "sold" dates
1) Date the offer is accepted, pending the removal of the subject's (the meeting of the minds)
2) The date the subject's clauses are removed. Some agents push for the clauses to be removed in 48 hours, but if you haven't been pre-approved by your bank there is a good chance this will have to be extended. Best to budget 7 working days for the bank and lawyers to do there due diligence.
3) The date the new ownership is registered at BC Lands. Theoretically, this could be months or years away from the time of the date the offer was accepted. But with our land system it is quite quick, usually by the end of this or next month.
#1 and #2 are generally within a week of each other
#3 may be several months into the future and should only be used if you don't have #1 or #2.
Just Jack,
Are you saying you have no issue with what Fred has done with his latest blog posts?
I would think that you should not just use months of inventory by itself. The sales to new listings ratio should form part of your data, along with price trends. All of which are lagging the market. But the market is like an oil tanker traveling on the ocean. Once on course, it takes time to alter direction. So this data, while lagging the market, would show the most probable direction for the next quarter.
Bank approvals would be a leading indicator. So would the level of consumer confidence, employment, vacancy, retail sales of semi-durable goods.
Data I'd like to have would include: is the cablevision company hooking up or disconnecting more or less people now. Same with telephone and power companies? How many condominiums in Victoria are drawing just enough power to run a fridge? How about the moving companies - are they busy moving people in or out of Victoria? How about bankruptcies, or the number of late house payments, are legal separations increasing or decreasing.
Or the number one indicator
Has Cameron Muir sold his house and is now renting?
How about demographics showing the number and ages in each municipality? I mean if 90% of Oak Bay is over 90 years old - that could mean trouble. Of course its not - but that is just an extreme example and might show where not to invest. Like a daycare in Rockland - not a good idea.
Just Jack....#2 is the accepted method by most, ie: sold sticker is up and PCS updated.
HHV...are you saying that doorknob is counting all sales, SFH, condos,apts but on SFH listings for his calculations??
Dave#1
should say "only SFH" not on
Dave,
It's really hard to follow because he's all over the place, but essentially yes; he's narrowed the current active listings down to a subset of SFH in certain municipalities and then used the market-wide sales data averaged over the first 6 months of the year, lumped pending and completed sales together to further confuse the data and then done the math to come up with 3.5 MOI but called it MSI (a term that also seems to come out of no where).
But I will be the first to admit I could be wrong in my interpretations somewhere as it is very difficult to follow his explanation/calculations because they are all over the place. I'd love it if he would clarify, but he seems to be too busy having his best year ever in 2010 to respond appropriately.
I'm taking Fred's site for what it is
It's just advertising.
There is no requirement for it being balanced. Heck, you can't get a balanced story in the MSM.
He is a salesman. It is not necessary for him to know how markets work. He just has to know enough about the market to sell homes.
When you buy a car off a lot, is it necessary for the salesman to know how a combustion engine works?
He is marketing. And the first thing he is selling you is faith in him. If he succeeds or not, depends on how he interacts with you.
So, should he be held to a higher standard just because what he is selling is more costly? I don't think so. He may have a different interpretation of the data, but as my great grandfather said to me, when I was four.
Jack, opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one.
My gg grandfather was a very strange man.
You're right Dave, #2 is the accepted method by most.
But why?
Vancouver has 7 times the number of sales that we have. They can be choosy. Victoria is so small we count our sales by the dozens not hundreds.
Today, the prices in Victoria city range from $309,000 to a high of $3,000,000 in just 123 listings. That is an incredible range over so few listings. So, we don't have the luxury of being able to throw good data away because it doesn't meet a nebulous definition of "sold"
But again, when you are looking at trends, it doesn't really matter as long as you are consistent.
Househunt said:
"It's really hard to follow because he's all over the place, but essentially yes; he's narrowed the current active listings down to a subset of SFH in certain municipalities and then used the market-wide sales data averaged over the first 6 months of the year, lumped pending and completed sales together to further confuse the data and then done the math to come up with 3.5 MOI but called it MSI (a term that also seems to come out of no where)."
Well that doesn't make him a bad realtor it just makes him bad at math. There is need for him to have math skills to do his job, other than...
3% of the first 100K, 1.5% of the balance plus HST
I think he should go back and correct the information, now that it has been brought to his attention because -
that's just good marketing.
But, he doesn't have to.
But, if we see it - how many other people do too.
And that would be not-so-good marketing.
I don't know why I am so talkative today - could it by those 15 cups of coffee?
We will probably start to see the number of listings shrink over the next little while, which will have an affect on MOI and the sales to new listings ratio may also improve. But,here is why I wanted an opposite for irrational exuberance. Market values may continue to fall.
Now that's irrational non-exuberance.
Where sellers are willing to slash a price to get a sale. And prospects jump for the bait. Hence more sales at lower prices. Or you could call it the "Bear Trap". And I think it will happen this time around, because of how affordability has eroded. A home cost about $400 more a month today, than it did five years ago. And that means a lot of cash strapped buyers that would make any rally in prices short lived, but would encourage those waiting at the side lines for some price relief.
Of course all of this could change if Joe Flaherty has trouble selling his properties. It doesn't really matter to Harper, he's renting his home in Ottawa. But I don't think his lease will be renewed.
Just Jack says:He is a salesman. It is not necessary for him to know how markets work. He just has to know enough about the market to sell homes.
When you buy a car off a lot, is it necessary for the salesman to know how a combustion engine works?
He is marketing. And the first thing he is selling you is faith in him. If he succeeds or not, depends on how he interacts with you.
So, should he be held to a higher standard just because what he is selling is more costly? I don't think so. He may have a different interpretation of the data, but as my great grandfather said to me, when I was four.
Jack, opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one.
Jack.....Yes he is only a salesman, but he is stating more than a opinion.
There are accepted industry methods for MOI, to change them is like me going to buy a toyota corolla, and Toyota has a 40mpg rating and the salesman says it gets 50mpg by his method of calculating.That is more than just a opinion.
Dave#1
True Dave
But he is not doing a MOI, he is doing an Absorption Rate. Which he shouldn't be using.
An absorption rate is used for a planned subdivision or planned condominium complexes - not for properties that are already existing. The builder wants to know how long will the complex take to sell out. The best way is to look at recently completed complexes and see how long they took to sell out. If you don't have this info, then you could use the ml system, but there is way too many assumptions to be made.
But why can't you use it for older existing homes? Well, a new subdivision or complex needs to be built and marketed and that takes time. So you would look at sales over a long time, like a year with all the ups and downs of the seasons to give you an approximation of how long it will take to sell your 50 condominiums on average.
But existing homes have an average 33 days on the market to sell. So why would you use 12 months? Why would you want to skew the data with winter month sales when your looking at a summer market?
The simple answer is you don't do absorption rates on existing properties. You use the last 30 days of sales in relation to the current inventory because of the quick turn over of existing homes. And that's why he has 3.5 month of inventory - remember last year was a good year for real estate.
So he's technically right in how it did an absorption rate, but not in how he applied it.
Technically a car will run on rocket fuel, but you should have your mother-in-law turn the key.
And Dave you're right, calculating that rate, might be considered as giving more than an opinion.
That's why in the "market evaluations" that the agents give to clients - you never see any analysis. Just a list of properties that have sold and an opinion as to the property's worth, undated and unsigned. To do anymore might suggest something more than an opinion which may mislead the reader into believing that the writer has higher qualifications than they possess.
That's not to say that their opinion is wrong or they are not personally capable to do so. Its just that the errors and omissions insurance may not cover them. The absorption rate is a good example, if you hired them and relied solely on that study and as a consequence suffered a loss because of your reliance on this flawed analysis, well ...
As for standards in the industry, there really aren't many written in stone. What constitutes a buyer or sellers market will not universally be the same everywhere on earth. Real Estate is subject to local variances. Like in parts of the states, where it may take months to close a sale and only the completion date is available. Well then that would affect the MOI. So a balanced market with stable prices might be 6 to 9 months or more.
The test is reasonableness and how his/her peers perform under the same circumstance. For example her/his peers may decide not to measure the houses, but rely on someone else for the measurements, but is that reasonable when they have a tape measure in the trunk? Could be.
I'll have to watch a couple more Perry Mason episodes before I can get an answer.
As soon as a property has had all the subjects removed; the property is considered sold and within a day or two the mls stats reflect that. Check it out. The property can sit there for months before the new owner takes possession. But in fact the property isn't "legally" sold until the "completion date" both parties have signed all the needed papers."completion" date. The "possession" date(when the new owner get the keys and can move in,) is usually the day after completion but not always.
Sorry guys;....didn't read my comments until after I posted it so one of the sentences is mixed up. This is my usual habit. Oh well, you all get the gist.
Alexandrahere has it right. VREB considers the house "sold" for stats purposes when all the subject to conditions are removed from the offer and it becomes unconditional. The actual sale date which involves cash and title transfer takes place much later (typically 4-10 weeks) and is not used for stats purposes.
That is why VREB reported sales are at the lowest level in December. Very few offers that month and only a few going unconditional from late November offers.
When the going gets tough, the tough delete all evidence of criticism ;-)
HHV said,
When the going gets tough, the tough delete all evidence of criticism ;-)
Not only did Fred Carver delete his comments here but he deleted my post on his blog that politely said said his stats were incorrect. He also disabled further comments.
But if nothing else he is consistent. Check out his latest post. Unbelievable.... VREB should learn his trick. If sales are down just add pending sales and completed sales together and claim sales are way up in July. Then ignore the areas where sales are low (Sooke) and you can claim a sellers market.
Fred's Latest Post
Somehow I don't think old Fred will be back. Too much reality on this blog.
Skeptic, his latest post, the one you linked to, was posted between the time that you left your initial comment on his blog and when I posted my subsequent comment, almost 24 hours ago. Fred Carver showed his true colours in the last 36 hours. He has no integrity in his reporting of data, and worse, when he is questioned about his confused reporting, rather than respond to the questions, he deletes them and his initial responses to them, preferring to pretend like he was correct the whole time.
His analysis traps him into a dilemma.
How do you explain falling or flat market values in a his defined "sellers market?"
As the volume of sales has now dropped to levels not seen since the summer of 2002, how can this be a seller's market?
How do you reconcile using information from one of the better years in sales (2009) to one of lack lustre sales activity (2010) without commenting on the data? Is it even relevant data?
Do you think we should send him a red pencil for his corrections?
Parrot at the Times Colonist squawks again.
Home prices to jump as total sales fall, forecast predicts
Same pathetic cut and paste job - as always.
I disagree with a lot of things in the TC article.
Secondly, how do they come up with these numbers? They predict an average of $505,000 for 2011? I think they are way off, I predict an average of $505,594.59!
Anyway,
Pending sales as of this morning using my MLS Matrix: 480
SFH Average Sale Price: $624,263
I think they would be smarter to predict a range (480k-515k), rather than picking numbers.
Marko,
BCREA uses something they call residential average which includes condos, SFH and townhouses all lumped together. They simply take residential dollar volume and divide by the total number of sales. This mixes apples and oranges but you have to remember that the point of all these news releases is to pump the market and generate sales (commission) for their member agents.
According to my PCS so far this week, i.e. from Monday til now there have been 29 SFH sold with a minimum of 2 beds,2bths in the areas of Vic,Esq.OB,SE & SW. Price range to $775K.
The average asking prices of those homes were $604,345 and the average selling price was $556,172. So the selling price was down 8% from original list price.
Out of the 29 homes that sold, 13 had suites and 4 had "almost a suite".
The top selling price, i.e. houses under $778K was $761K and the bottom was $390K.
alexandrahere - 8% down from initial list price or final list price prior to sale?
Animal Spirit....down 8% from initial list price. I catch most of the original list prices but not all.
Also seeing alot of OM's....some of course will become re-lists next week sometime.
do you happen to know what we are running from final list price?
I'd like to combine this with the % of list price to assessed price as a metric to track what the market is doing - as this goes down, the median will likely track at the same rate.
Animal Spirit: I have had to go thru each one. It would appear that the average last list price was about $564,000. So average selling price was $556,000.
That means that the average house sold for 98.5% of the last asking price. It should be noted that One house sold for $670K up from $699K, one sold for $598 down from $599K and one sold for the last asking price of $585K.
Remember though, most of the houses that have sold in the past three months were originally listed at thousands below what they would have been asking only months before.
Skeptic,
It's possible for sales to fall but reported prices to rise. It's a mathematical quirk and you have to sample just right to get but it is possible.
Picture this, sales fall 20% but it's first time buyers that are shut out of the market. That is the bottom end of market takes a sever volume drop, but the higher-end only sees a small drop. So the average is skewed up by sampling bias.
Of course, this is only temporary and will correct once the effect of volume drops flow through the whole market.
Is there an easy way of tracking $ per square foot for low, medium, and high end properties?
piggington in San Diego found remarkable accuracy between $/sqft and the Case-Shiller index, only the $/sqft is available immediately where the CS-HPI lags by 3 months (rendering it close to useless for everyone but historians).
Given the slow pace of sales, it should be possible to do in a few minutes per day for someone with access to the data ;)
Bungling around with medians and averages is ham-fisted; statistically it produces more false positives than it's worth.
from the greaterfool.ca blog:
"After a full year of rock-bottom emergency interest rates and realtor verbosity and exaggeration, which pulled sales from the future, the market is sinking fast. Current price reductions are probably nothing compared to what will come, which means early vultures stand a good chance of ending up roadkill."
Love it.
Can sanity return the the Garden City? I recently signed another lease in Estevan for another year, so I am betting on it.
Things are ugly here in Edmonton: twitter.com/squidly77
An attempt at a home price index for the urban municipalities.
Some bloggers have been writing about an HPI for Victoria. I thought I would give it a try to see what it looks like. I only used the urban core municipalities for non water view homes that had between 1,500 to 2,500 finished square feet and were located on 4,000 to 10,000 square feet lots.
Visually, it might help you think of the HPI for a middle income household being represented as the typical Gordon Head Box.
And this is what has happen to the price and mortgage payments over the last 11 years of this real estate cycle for that typical middle income home.
July 2000 (48 days to sell a home)
$223,500 or $124/sft. $771 per 100K
July 2001 (interest rate going down)
$225,000 or $112/sft. $719 per 100K
July 2002 (days to sell are now 22)
$250,000 or $132/sft. $664 per 100K
July 2003 (peak sales at 99)
$299,000 or $152/sft. $607 per 100K
July 2004
$334,900 or $167/sft. $634 per 100K
July 2005
$429,500 or $215/sft. $618 per 100K
July 2006 (0 down 40 year mortgages)
$452,750 or $217/sft. $685 per 100K
July 2007 (peak sales at 93)
$527,300 or $263/sft. $718 per 100K
35 years amortized at $652 per 100K
July 2008
$532,500 or $262/ sft. $700 per 100K
35 years amortized at $632 per 100K
July 2009 (rate stimulus plan)
$552,250 or $270/sft. $556 per 100K
35 years amortized at $474 per 100K
July 2010 (lowest sales 61)
$560,000 or $276/sft. $548 per 100K
35 years amortized at $464 per 100K
At the beginning of the cycle you can see that while homes were getting more costly, in relation to monthly payments homes were stable in affordability. That started to change in 2005 when house prices jumped drastically as people maxed out on the mortgages fearing that they would never be able to own a home. This lead to biggest volume of sales happening in 2007. That should have been the beginning of the end of the market as affordability peaked causing sale volumes in 2008 to drop. But the CMHC stimulus plan and crashed interest rates revamped the cycle. Yet the price for the typical middle income home didn't change, nor did the plan increase sale volumes, showing, to me, that the middle income family was at the extreme limit of affordability. However, crashing the rate and increasing the amortization from 25 to 35 years did allow those financially strapped home owners to refinance, otherwise we would be having a market not unlike the USA with court ordered sales setting market prices.
Some bloggers have been writing about an HPI for Victoria. I thought I would give it a try to see what it looks like. I only used the urban core municipalities for non water view homes that had between 1,500 to 2,500 finished square feet and were located on 4,000 to 10,000 square feet lots.
Visually, it might help you think of the HPI for a middle income household being represented as the typical Gordon Head Box.
And this is what has happen to the price and mortgage payments over the last 11 years of this real estate cycle for that typical middle income home.
July 2000 (48 days to sell a home)
$223,500 or $124/sft. $771 per 100K
July 2001 (interest rate going down)
$225,000 or $112/sft. $719 per 100K
July 2002 (days to sell are now 22)
$250,000 or $132/sft. $664 per 100K
July 2003 (peak sales at 99)
$299,000 or $152/sft. $607 per 100K
July 2004
$334,900 or $167/sft. $634 per 100K
July 2005
$429,500 or $215/sft. $618 per 100K
July 2006 (0 down 40 year mortgages)
$452,750 or $217/sft. $685 per 100K
July 2007 (peak sales at 93)
$527,300 or $263/sft. $718 per 100K
35 years amortized at $652 per 100K
July 2008
$532,500 or $262/ sft. $700 per 100K
35 years amortized at $632 per 100K
July 2009 (rate stimulus plan)
$552,250 or $270/sft. $556 per 100K
35 years amortized at $474 per 100K
July 2010 (lowest sales 61)
$560,000 or $276/sft. $548 per 100K
35 years amortized at $464 per 100K
At the beginning of the cycle homes were getting more costly, but affordable payments were stable. That changed in 2005 when house prices jumped as people feared never being able to own a home. This lead to biggest volume of sales in 2007. That should have been the beginning of the end of the market as affordability peaked and sale volumes dropped. But rates crashed interest and revamped the cycle. Yet the typical middle income home didn't change much in price, nor did sale volumes increase, showing that the middle income family was at the extreme limit of affordability. However, crashing the rate and the amortization from 25 to 35 years did allow those financially strapped to refinance, otherwise we would be having a market not unlike the USA with court ordered sales setting market prices.
Some bloggers have been writing about an HPI for Victoria. I thought I would give it a try to see what it looks like. I only used the urban core municipalities for non water view homes that had between 1,500 to 2,500 finished square feet and were located on 4,000 to 10,000 square feet lots.
Visually, it might help you think of the HPI for a middle income household being represented as the typical Gordon Head Box.
And this is what has happen to the price and mortgage payments over the last 11 years of this real estate cycle for that typical middle income home.
July 2000 (48 days to sell a home)
$223,500 or $124/sft. $771 per 100K
July 2001 (interest rate going down)
$225,000 or $112/sft. $719 per 100K
July 2002 (days to sell are now 22)
$250,000 or $132/sft. $664 per 100K
July 2003 (peak sales at 99)
$299,000 or $152/sft. $607 per 100K
July 2004
$334,900 or $167/sft. $634 per 100K
July 2005
$429,500 or $215/sft. $618 per 100K
July 2006 (0 down 40 year mortgages)
$452,750 or $217/sft. $685 per 100K
July 2007 (peak sales at 93)
$527,300 or $263/sft. $718 per 100K
35 years amortized at $652 per 100K
July 2008
$532,500 or $262/ sft. $700 per 100K
35 years amortized at $632 per 100K
July 2009 (rate stimulus plan)
$552,250 or $270/sft. $556 per 100K
35 years amortized at $474 per 100K
July 2010 (lowest sales 61)
$560,000 or $276/sft. $548 per 100K
35 years amortized at $464 per 100K
part 2
At the beginning of the cycle homes were getting more costly, but affordable payments were stable. That changed in 2005 when house prices jumped as people feared never being able to own a home. This lead to biggest volume of sales in 2007. That should have been the beginning of the end of the market as affordability peaked and sale volumes dropped. But rates crashed interest and revamped the cycle. Yet the typical middle income home didn't change much in price, nor did sale volumes increase, showing that the middle income family was at the extreme limit of affordability. However, crashing the rate and the amortization from 25 to 35 years did allow those financially strapped to refinance, otherwise we would be having a market not unlike the USA with court ordered sales setting market prices.
Good morning everyone. Here are my stats for the past week of 26 July - 01 August.
SFH: Vic,Vic West, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, Saanich East & Saanich West.
Criteria: Min 2 beds, 2 baths; price range from $375K - $775K.
SOLD: 31
NEW: 21
P/C: 27
O/M: 29
Active listings in the past week in these areas and meeting the criteria are down by 39 properties from the week before.
Some notable sale prices were:
270 Beechwood $795 to $648 down 147K
4156 Holland $744 to $640 down 104K
3830 Pitcombe $670 to $570 down 100K
945 Woodside $769 to $670 down 99K
Condos
Minimum 2 bedrooms, from $260K - $625K
Vic: Burnside,Fairfield,JamesBay,Mayfair,Rockland,Sears,VicWest
Oak Bay: All
Esquimalt: All
Saanich East: Broadmead,Camosun,Cedar Hill,Gordon Head,High Quadra,Lake Hill,Maplewood,Mt. Doug,Mt.Tolmie,Quadra & Swan Lake
Saanich West: Gorge,Tillicum & Interurban
SOLD: 14
New: 9
P/C: 14
O/M: 12
Some notable price changes:
#203-225 Belleville 588K - 489K - down $99,000
#3-1365 Rockland 569K - $445K down $124,000.
In the past week active listings in these areas with the stated criteria are down by 17 properties from the week before.
July July
2010 2009
527 933 Net Unconditional Sales
1,119 1,357 New Listings
4,477 3,632 Active Listings
oops .. another notable condo sale last week:
#105-21 Erie Original list price $689K sold $582K down $107,000.
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