Monday market update

MLS numbers courtesy of the VREB via Marko Juras. These numbers are for the Victoria Real Estate Board's reporting area, including Sooke, Shawnigan Lake and the Gulf Islands.

January 2012 (last week's numbers)

Net Unconditional Sales: 328 {240} [154] (52)

New Listings: 978 {717} [497] (228)

Active Listings: 3551 {3456} [3428] (3,358)

Sales to new listings ratio: 33%

January 2011

Net Unconditional Sales: 339

New Listings: 1,187

Active Listings: 3,283

Sales to new listings ratio: 29%

Sales to active listings ratio: 10.3% or 9.7 MOI

Thanks to Leo S for keeping up with the Monday market updates over the past two weeks. 

Daily sales volume is low, at roughly 11 units per day. Strange times in the Victoria marketplace. Will all the bubble talk in the media lately keep buyers on the sidelines? Will it lead to a "rush to the exits" by the specuvestors? January is nearly done, it's safe to say that January 2012 will post slightly better numbers than 2011, though of course that's all relative. When you compare a Pinto to a Gremlin performance-wise you still end up with a poorly performing vehicle no?

Jan 23: Monday Market Update

MLS numbers courtesy of the VREB via Marko Juras. These numbers are for the Victoria Real Estate Board's reporting area, including Sooke, Shawnigan Lake and the Gulf Islands.

January 2012 (last week's numbers)

Net Unconditional Sales: 240 [154] (52)

New Listings: 717 [497] (228)

Active Listings: 3456 [3428] (3,358)

Sales to new listings ratio: 33%

January 2011

Net Unconditional Sales: 339

New Listings: 1,187

Active Listings: 3,283

Sales to new listings ratio: 29%

Sales to active listings ratio: 10.3% or 9.7 MOI

Not much to say about this one. Looks like we're on pace to more or less match last January's numbers, except with 5% higher inventory.

Jan 16: Monday Market Update

MLS numbers courtesy of the VREB via Marko Juras. These numbers are for the Victoria Real Estate Board's reporting area, including Sooke, Shawnigan Lake and the Gulf Islands.

January 2012 (last week's numbers)

Net Unconditional Sales: 154 (52)

New Listings: 497 (228)

Active Listings: 3428 (3,358)

Sales to new listings ratio: 31%

January 2011

Net Unconditional Sales: 339

New Listings: 1,187

Active Listings: 3,283

Sales to new listings ratio: 29%

Sales to active listings ratio: 10.3% or 9.7 MOI

Hi, Leo S here. I've offered to prepare some of the regular stats-related updates for HHV to save him the work. The blog remains HHV's, and I intend to keep my remarks to a minimum. However in the future I would like to resurrect Double Agent's charts of this kind of data (active listings, sales, inventory, MOI), which I found very helpful. Thanks to HHV for keeping the blog going.

Breathing again. Back to our regularly scheduled programming Monday. Thanks to everyone who expressed concern. Regrets to those who'd danced with joy believing I'd written this little corner of the Interwebs off.

The truth

You can read the spin, or you can learn the truth. Year over year, single family home prices in the VREB reporting area fell by 8.4% between December 2010 ($647,063) and December 2011 ($595,582).

Marko Juras gives us the sales volume breakdown in unit sales and dollar amounts:

2007 = 8,931 unit sales: 12.23%
2008 = 6,519 unit sales: (27.01%)
2009 = 8,096 unit sales: 24.19%
2010 = 6,546 unit sales: (19.15%)
2011 = 6,040 unit sales: (7.73%)

2005 - $3,206,969,321
2006 - $3,373,171,099
2007 - $4,146,651,569
2008 - $3,111,882,746
2009 - $3,775,730,705
2010 - $3,239,493,835
2011 - $2,981,977,290

No matter how many times industry reps repeat the "balanced market" mantra, the numbers don't live up to the lie. It wasn't a balanced market. Not compared to 2010, nor 2009, nor even the height of the dismal 2008 market. 2011 was an absolute stinker compared to 2007. A flop when evaluated against 2006 and just "a wee bit off" when you go so far back as 2005. Truth be told, you have to go back a decade to find a market like this past year. Remember then? That was back when everyone was telling you that real estate was a horrible investment.

It's true though: when expressed as an annual average, the market only fell by just under 3%. Until you add in inflation to your loss, which effectively doubles it. Heck. A piddly little one year GIC paid better than Victoria single family home real estate last year.

But don't worry if you bought last spring, you're in it for the long haul right? Hopefully you bought in Fernwood.