Monday, September 30, 2013

Monday market update: is it still raining?

MLS numbers update 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.


September 2013September
 2012 
Wk 1Wk 2Wk 3Wk 4
Unconditional Sales96
224
354456
416
New Listings3055988741073
1210
Active Listings4513455645794565
 5025
Sales to New Listings
31%
37%40%42%
 34%
Sales Projection403470495485
Months of Inventory
12.1

The final monthly numbers will get confirmed tomorrow--at which time this post will be updated.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Sept 23 Market Update

MLS numbers update 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.


September 2013September
 2012 
Wk 1Wk 2Wk 3Wk 4
Unconditional Sales96
224
354
416
New Listings305598874
1210
Active Listings451345564579
 5025
Sales to New Listings
31%
37%40%
 34%
Sales Projection403470495

Months of Inventory
12.1

It does seem there are legitimate questions about how accurate sales stats are around the country.  Not just in seedy Toronto but even the CREA might be adding up suspect numbers.  However what isn't discussed in the numbers is whether this is a new practice. One would think that realtors have been listing houses on multiple boards for years or decades.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Sept 16 Market Update

MLS numbers update 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.


September 2013September
 2012 
Wk 1Wk 2Wk 3Wk 4
Unconditional Sales96
224


416
New Listings305598

1210
Active Listings45134556

 5025
Sales to New Listings
31%
37%

 34%
Sales Projection403470


Months of Inventory
12.1

Last year at this point we had 208 sales so we're running a bit ahead, but surprisingly not much, considering last year we were in the middle of the mortgage rule change hit.

Interesting discussion about pre-sales.   How can you evaluate whether a pre-sale is a good deal?   I find it hard to imagine that buying a condo that won't actually exist for another 2 years is anything but speculation.  How many people are buying the pre-sale because they just love the building versus thinking they are getting in at a good price and they can turn it over later?   How many people plan ahead 2 years to get into a microcondo?

Monday, September 9, 2013

Sept 9 Market Update

MLS numbers update 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.


September 2013September
 2012 
Wk 1*Wk 2Wk 3Wk 4
Unconditional Sales96



416
New Listings305


1210
Active Listings4513


 5025
Sales to New Listings
31%



 34%
Sales Projection403



Months of Inventory
12.1

Slow start but there was the long weekend in there.  Hard to imagine we won't exceed last year's numbers.   Should be coming in around 500 if we don't get a serious slowdown.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

August wrap up

It's that time of the month again.  The time when the VREB optimism bunny is jumping up and down because our sales have improved from dreadful to average.   So is the market picking up or is this just another bump on the road down?  Well let's take a look.

Sales first, where indeed things are looking up.  The best summer in 5 years!   Well that may be but 2013 is still the worst year in 5 years.  Perhaps next month the market will no longer be the worst.  Unless we hit more regulatory tightening we should surpass 2012, in which the slowdown didn't really hit until the latter half of the year.  There will likely be a minor hit when the last of the ultra-low pre-approvals expire, but I don't think it will have the same magnitude as the intervention last year.   On the other hand, the hounds are getting restless again and rumours of more OSFI tightening are starting to appear.


And prices?  Flat as a halibut.  The VREB is excited about as 12.5% increase in the townhouse median, but it's nought but noise.




But do we recall our skew factor?   Turns out when I wrote that last article I screwed up my X axis and left out the last couple months.   Those happened to be the ones where the skew factor increased even more (the VREB paid me off to leave those months out the first time).  It's pretty severe at the moment as it turns out.  Hard to say much about magnitude, but this could be hiding the actual decline in prices.  Thanks to Koozdra for continuing to provide the data to make this graph.