Oct 28 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.

	October 2013				October  2012
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	89	214	319	433	373
New Listings	240	444	650	828	1068
Active Listings	4408	4390	4369	4338	4876
Sales to New Listings	37%	48%	49%	52%	35%
Sales Projection	--	546	524	524
Months of Inventory					13.1

Surprisingly enough there is no slowdown in sales yet.  Continued on pace of last week and should be easily over 500 sales at the end of the month.

Some chatter about an article out of Australia which shows Canadian real house prices on a flat line since 1981 and therefore there is no bubble or even the slightest hint of one.  I made the assertion that the data is bullshit, and here are some more details about why.

First of all, the article references the BIS database of house prices as a source.  Looking at that database, they use the New House Price Index from statscan.

Here's that data for BC, Canada, and Victoria.

Now look carefully at that data and consider that (as best as I can tell), the NHPI is NOT inflation adjusted (they say they use it as a component of the CPI).  That is according to this index, NOMINAL prices for new housing in Victoria are over 20% cheaper now than in 1981.

Of course this is impossible, so there's something else at work here, which is that the data is quality adjusted.  I'll let Ben explain the problem with that (scroll down for the section on NHPI).

The divergence between the NHPI and other indices like Teranet or the average national price really says it all.
I'd say that anyone using the NHPI to make some determination about the valuation of real estate in Canada is going to come to the wrong conclusion.

Oct 21 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.

	October 2013				October  2012
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	89	214	319		373
New Listings	240	444	650		1068
Active Listings	4408	4390	4369		4876
Sales to New Listings	37%	48%	49%		35%
Sales Projection	--	546	524
Months of Inventory					13.1

As always, we are on the descending slope for sales. Even so we might almost hit 500 this month, which would put us at an MOI of about 8.5.   Still firmly in buyers market territory, but not quite as extreme as last year.

Oct 17 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.

	October 2013				October  2012
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	89	214			373
New Listings	240	444			1068
Active Listings	4408	4390			4876
Sales to New Listings	37%	48%			35%
Sales Projection	--	546
Months of Inventory					13.1

A strong start to the month.  Don't believe that sales projection as sales will slow down, but there is a real dearth of new listings (active listings still high) out there right now and relatively (to last year) decent sales.   October is about the last month that could be affected by ultra-low rate holds, so either this is the last hurrah or rates increasing are having very little effect.  As a point of reference, last Oct 15th we had only 166 sales and 483 listings, and that was with 2 mondays to that point where this year we only have one month to date.

Had a Jehova's Witness REALTOR® drop off a letter today...

Dear Homeowner,

I am pleased to let you know that the house as <neighbour's address> has just been unconditionally sold.  The property was sold before it was actually listed which is an indication of a strong interest for homes in established areas such as yours.  The offer that was accepted came in close to the asking price and both parties are very happy with the outcome.

Should you have any questions related to this sale or any other real estate inquiries, feel free to get in touch etc and so on.  

Well I guess you don't get in the top 10% of realtors in this market by sitting around!

I do wonder about who is basing their decision to sell their house on what the neighbours are doing, rather than what their own plans are...

Boxes in the sky

CS asks:  "have condo sales increased relative to house sales since 2008?"

Here are the SFH and condo sales back to 2007.

At first glance it's hard to tell if there has been any shift, so let's plot the ratio of SFH sales to condos.

Now here's something interesting.  This year there has been a massive shift towards SFHs.   At the same time cheap the skew factor tells us that within SFHs sales are more concentrated on the higher end.   The bottom may have dropped out of the market and no one noticed because it was disguised behind higher sales and flat prices.

As boring as this market currently is, there is something brewing and I think many people could be surprised (including myself).

Edit:  Some perspective:

I'm quite mystified..   There seems to be some alignment to the market but maybe it's all just random.

Oct 7 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.

	October 2013				October  2012
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	89				373
New Listings	240				1068
Active Listings	4408				4876
Sales to New Listings	37%				35%
Sales Projection	--
Months of Inventory					13.1

Another month another same old in the Victoria market.   Sorry for the lack of monthly update, it's been a bit insane at work.  Will post it eventually and I also have some thoughts about the state of condo construction in Victoria that I'd like to write up.
Again it is going to be tough for this October to match the miserable lows of last year.   However the last of the ultra low rate holds should be expired by now so let's see what kind of hit sales are going to take.