Feb 18 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.

	February 2014				February  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	101	200			394
New Listings	372	588			1039
Active Listings	3556	3599			4072
Sales to New Listings	27%	34%			38%
Sales Projection	---	400
Months of Inventory					10.3

Pretty steady sales rate of 100/week.   Soon we will no longer be blowing last year's numbers out the water for sales.  But the government is getting nervous again, with some tweaks to CMHC in the 2014 budget.  If the market in the rest of the country doesn't settle down soon there will be more, and more significant ones.

January Roundup

A few days late, a few graphs short, but here's some info about how the market fared in January.  The full report is as always, over at the VREB.   Their new president, Tim Ayres (a past contributor to this blog) seems to be much more reserved with his opinions.   Of course he deals out in Sooke a lot so he has looked the decline in the eyes more than most.   Sales are up, but Tim knows it's hardly cause to celebrate given the extremely low levels last January in the depths of the hit from the mortgage changes.

Another sobering discovery that the VREB has made is the MLS HPI.  In previous years they would have trumpeted gains in the median price (up a staggering 11% Jan 2013 to 2014!!!!) but now they know this is mostly nonsense because the HPI over the same period is down 1.7%.   If you're unlucky enough to live on the peninsula, SFH prices are down just shy of 5%.

Yearly medians are edging up due to sales mix changes, a reduction in the MOI, and the dropping out of last year's very low January numbers.

Looking forward, the sales to new listings ratio gives a clue as to the direction of the market.  It has recovered from it's lows lately, and is heading to the levels seen in the late 90s, which is more in line with the flat market scenario rather than the declines we've seen in the last 4 years.  Of course all this is depending on continued low rates and no more government meddling (and you know how much they like to meddle).

Looking back at the peak, things are about the same median price wise, with SFH down 8%, condos down 12%.  Only townhouses have gone insane in recent months.  Clearly the low sales in this category make this measure far too volatile for anything other than entertainment value.  Just Jack, care to explain a $100k increase in townhouse medians within a few months?

By the way how's that affordability picture looking these days?   If Victoria were governed by more traditional definitions of what constitutes affordable housing, what would the average family be paying?   Based on the average income, 20% down, and current 5 year rates, that would be about $470,000.    So only about a $100k gap to go.

Edit:   LeoM asks: "Has anyone done a Victoria graph similar to the Toronto graph?"

Here is that:

Update:  Regraphed in 2013 dollars and with a power trend line as per Koozdra's request.

Or log scale if you wish....

Although a log scale of inflation adjusted house prices sends quite the wrong message...

Jan 27 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.

	January 2014				January  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	71	167	243		294
New Listings	362	610	854		1080
Active Listings	3295	3346	3340		3870
Sales to New Listings	20%	27%	28%		27%
Sales Projection	---	295	310
Months of Inventory					13.2

Surprisingly enough sales dropped second week to third, but we'll still easily exceed last year's total.  

2014 Predictions

Time for another prediction thread.  What will happen in 2014?

My guesses are:
1. VREB sales of 6200 (up slightly from 2013).
2. Greater Victoria 6 month SFH average in Dec 2014:  $580,000 (currently $593,000)
3. BoC overnight rate in Dec 2014: 1%
4. Teranet June 2014: 128 (currently 133)
5. Teranet Dec 2014: 124

As for macro events, the larger economy will be sluggish and boring, with Canada not making any headway on unemployment in 2014.  We will be teetering on the edge of deflation, and if the Bank of Canada is going anywhere it is more likely to be to cut rates than to raise them.   The US will slowly dial back stimulus but in baby steps.  Fixed mortgage rates within a narrow range of current values.

We are off the recent peak of months of inventory as the last mortgage changes worked their way through the market, but as the rest of the country goes gangbusters, I suspect there will be more tweaking of the CMHC this year.   Something less headline grabbing than a reduction in the amortizations, perhaps a tweak to the maximum TDS ratios.

Edit:  And the monthly numbers from Marko

	January 2014				January  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	71	167			294
New Listings	362	610			1080
Active Listings	3295	3346			3870
Sales to New Listings	20%	27%			27%
Sales Projection	---	295
Months of Inventory					13.2

The linear sales projection is meaningless in a month like January where sales increase strongly from the first weeks.  We'll be well over 300.

Jan 13 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.

	January 2014				January  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	71				294
New Listings	362				1080
Active Listings	3295				3870
Sales to New Listings	20%				27%
Sales Projection	---
Months of Inventory					13.2

You can tell it was a blustery rainy weekend by the number of comments and number of mentions of Phoenix.  Sales total should be around 360 if current pace continues..

Happy New Years your home lost value again

Hey it's a new year.  To get the year started on an positive note, home owners around the Greater Victoria area will be getting their assessment to let them know how many tens of thousands of dollars their largest asset declined by this year.

It's a mixed bag out there, but negative across the board.

Read the complete article on the Times Colonist

A whopping 10% decline in Metchosin, but who cares about those farmers, here in Oak Bay we are insulated.   Yep, a paltry $2000/month decline in value for the standard house there.  

Our assessment is down 4.6%.  Interestingly enough, the bank assessment done in June 2013, was 5% higher than the 2013 BC assessed value which is supposed to reflect value as of July 2013.  Seems like quite the variation.  Either banks like higher assessments, or the appraisal procedure consists of taking the current BC assessment and adding or subtracting a random small number (Just Jack are you offended yet?).   Also apparently the land lost value, while the building increased.  Didn't know that buildings age like wine...   Or maybe they noticed that I scraped the moss off the roof?  

The more sophisticated measures of price have made it clear that despite static medians and averages, the market continues to decline.   Assessments down 2% to 5%, and MLS HPI and Teranet both down 2.4%.  As you can see, the median price declines have flattened out due to changes in the sales mix, while the months of inventory has recovered from our little government meddling last year.   I would expect median prices to start declining again in 2014.

The VREB continues to expand the information they provide, which is great to see.  Many real estate boards are very secretive with information, so despite the interesting spin in their summaries, I commend whoever is crunching the numbers over there for making them all public.  Now please archive the full news release every month, not just the price summaries :)

Thanks to everyone for your contributions and comments on the blog last year.  It'd be a boring place without your input.

Dec 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.

	December 2013				December  2012
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	94	195			283
New Listings	148	282			405
Active Listings	3829	3709			3896
Sales to New Listings	64%	69%			70%
Sales Projection	---	330ish
Months of Inventory					12.3

Again no point in sales projections using days of the month.  It's Christmas time, only a handful have a presents budget of half a million dollars.