Nov 25 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.

	Nov 2014				Nov  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	137	234	357		412
New Listings	195	366	516		698
Active Listings	3722	3685	3639		4017
Sales to New Listings	70%	64%	69%		59%
Sales Projection	--	468	476
Months of Inventory					9.8

Nov 10 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.

	Nov 2014				Nov  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	137				412
New Listings	195				698
Active Listings	3722				4017
Sales to New Listings	70%				59%
Sales Projection	--
Months of Inventory					9.8

Pretty comparable sales to this week last year but with somewhat lower inventory and fewer new listings coming online.

Oct 20 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.

	Oct 2014				Oct  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	83	230	356		512
New Listings	178	393	556		979
Active Listings	4100	4060	3988		4322
Sales to New Listings	47%	59%	64%		52%
Sales Projection	--	661	630
Months of Inventory					8.4

There has been some discussion about this piece of "analysis" by a mortgage broker.  His theory is that when interest rates go up, so do prices.  Apparently in the last 30 years, increasing mortgage rates lead to increasing prices 62% of the time 2 months later.  Never mind that the two month lag is never justified (as Just Jack said, a 3 month rate hold would blow that out of the water).  The obvious gaping hole in this theory is that prices have been increasing for most of that 30 year period, so it's not at all surprising that 62% of the months they went up.  If someone were to care to evaluate the entire period they would probably find more than 62% of months that showed increasing prices.

Oct 14 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.

	Oct 2014				Oct  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	83	230			512
New Listings	178	393			979
Active Listings	4100	4060			4322
Sales to New Listings	47%	59%			52%
Sales Projection	--	661
Months of Inventory					8.4

Per Marko's request.  We're still (almost) the weakest market in the country for the past 7 years.  Edged out Edmonton in the last couple months but I suspect when September numbers are out we will be in last place.

What it cost to run our house.

In case anyone is wondering what it costs to run a pretty typical house, here is ours for last year:

Gordon head, 1970s build, ~2100sqft.   2 adults 1 child upstairs, 1 adult in suite downstairs.

Month	Hydro	Gas	Water/Sewer /Garbage	Property Tax	Insurance
January	$172.67	$86.25	$200.91
February	$164.64	$104.95
March	$164.64	$78.70
April	$96.83	$78.29
May	$96.83	$65.17
June	$57.49	$59.59	$222.13
July	$57.49	$45.90		$2,897.88	$957.00
August	$57.69	$79.23
September	$57.69	$70.33
October	$110.68	$50.91	$263.32
November	$110.68	$75.68
December	$172.67	$86.47
Total Utilities	$2,888.00
Total	$6,743.00

Heating is a heat pump with gas backup and baseboards downstairs.  Gas for hot water and 2 fireplaces (rarely used).   

So even without factoring the mortgage in, it costs about $560/month to keep the place operating.   Adding in mortgage interest, that goes to $1450/month.    Nothing big on maintenance, but the new gutters and some random Home Depot excursions probably added up to another $100/month.

Sept 29 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.

	Sept 2014				Sept  2013
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	105	232	362	511	487
New Listings	325	580	810	1034	1106
Active Listings	4293	4310	4280	4261	4547
Sales to New Listings	32%	40%	45%	49%	44%
Sales Projection	462	510	530	562
Months of Inventory					9.3

Hey it's an update.  By the way thanks Dasmo for posting the article about the true cost of commuting a few weeks ago.  That lead me to discover Mr. Money Moustache and I've been devouring that blog from start to finish ever since.   Next project: early retirement / financial independence.
Amazing how I didn't stumble across this blog before, given that I suspect there are quite a few commenters here that follow this philosophy.  I'm particularly interested in how realistic the early retirement concept is in an expensive city like Victoria.  Unlike Mr. Money Moustache, our house didn't cost $200,000, we're not retired before having kids (and thus childcare), and most everything is more money in Canada than in the US.  However everyone can still use a good punch in the face as far as spending is concerned.
Bonus:  an entirely new set of spreadsheets to create, and there's nothing like a good spreadsheet to get the adrenaline going.

September

So...   how 'bout this heat?

An unexpected joy of homeownership came up this summer, twice even.  That is scraping egg off stucco that some local teenagers tossed at the house.   Or maybe it was info reminding me to put another damn post up before we hit 500 comments.

Well not much has changed in September, but more and more the market seems to be stabilizing.   Is it a plateau?  Is it a rebound?  Is there a dead cat involved?  Although we hardly fell fast enough to bounce.  Time to update the spreadsheet and see if any particular graph looks interesting enough to post.

Here's one:

Since the market peak in 2010 we had steadily worsening conditions for three whole years.  Every month the inventory grew and sales flagged.  But since mid 2013 there has been a reversal that has been remarkably consistent.   MOI has been dropping for over a year now while prices slowly creep up.   Will this turn around without more government intervention?   Or maybe the 112,000 lost private sector jobs in August will temper the trend all on its own.