And so it goes

The HouseHuntVictoria blog has moved to http://househuntvictoria.ca.

Well after a brief burst this spring with more regular updates, it looks like we're back to irregular and late updates.    This has forced the issue for me somewhat of whether I realistically will maintain this blog going forward.   There are a number of changes I'd like to make to the blog as a whole, but unfortunately without ownership of it I can only post articles.  In the spring I tried to contact HouseHuntVictoria several times about transferring ownership, but he is either not monitoring the email anymore or has moved on permanently.

So as Adam Carolla says, in the end you have to ask a question about any activity you're doing:

"Does it make you money or does it make you happy?"
(and if the answer is no, move the f**k on)  

This blog has never made me any money, but it has certainly been a rewarding experience in other ways over the years.   It helped me tremendously with understanding the factors influencing the direction of the market, and has given me the information I needed to make a decision on whether to buy and when.   However I feel I've reached a point where I've analyzed the market every which way I can think of with the public data that is available.  All that would be left to do going forward is parrot Marko's and VREB's updates, while many new happiness or money generating activities compete for my time.   So with that I'm unfortunately going to bow out formally from posting further articles.   While I will miss the discussion here, I'm hoping that some of it will continue in other forums such as VibrantVictoria, where I will likely occasionally post updates on market trends as the fancy strikes.

I would like to thank the many commenters on this blog that have contributed information or stimulating debate.  I would have quit years ago if it wasn't for the discussion here.  Thanks especially to Marko for the inside track information and regular updates, Just Jack for the detailed analyses of submarkets and humour, our chief halibut and investment god dasmo, the always sensible DavidL, Koozdra for providing me all the regional data, as well as caveat emptor, patriotz, CS, totoro, Double Agent, Roger, and many many others.    Most of all thanks to HHV for letting me post all this time.  I've learned a huge amount from you all.

Here's a graph for the road.

Cheers,
Leo

April 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.

	April 2015				April  2014
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	102	264	479		664
New Listings	223	561	879		1521
Active Listings	3758	3870	3894		4404
Sales to New Listings	46%	47%	54%		44%
Sales Projection	--	726	810
Months of Inventory					6.6

Real lack of new listings coming on out there.   Last year at this point we had somewhat fewer sales (436) but quite a few more listings (1073).    A year ago sales flagged a bit and I thought maybe it was the beginning of the end of the trend of YoY improvements, but here we are a year later with no sign of it stopping yet.

Happy April

Well maybe 734 people last month earn $100k in Victoria.   Or maybe it's a big debt orgy. 

Well it just got a little harder with CMHC raising rates by 15% (about $2700 extra for the average Victoria home), which we can expect to continue as the government fights to keep the housing market from boiling over.   Doubling the TFSA contribution limit plays into this as well by encouraging people to invest in things other than real estate.   Of course the tax on zero is still zero.  

A good month for the home market in Victoria though.  At 5 months of inventory we're solidly in balanced market overall, but as we know from Just Jack's finer analysis, this is only the average of a pretty hot core and a languishing westshore.   

That trend of improving market shows no sign of stopping yet.

Sales up 22% YtD over last year.  Even though I guessed the highest it looks like I was far too pessimistic in my yearly sales forecast.  

March 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.

	March 2015				March  2014
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	132	307	491		575
New Listings	396	707	1040		1286
Active Listings	3562	3633	3693		4050
Sales to New Listings	33%	43%	47%		45%
Sales Projection	--	675	720
Months of Inventory					7.0

Last time we had over 700 sales in march was 5 years ago at 789.  Before that it was 2007 (833 sales).   So not a hot market yet (that would be between 800 and 900 sales with an inventory of half of what we have now) but decent.  Enough to draw the bulls out of the woodwork at least.

March 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.

	March 2015				March  2014
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	132	307			575
New Listings	396	707			1286
Active Listings	3562	3633			4050
Sales to New Listings	33%	43%			45%
Sales Projection	--	675
Months of Inventory					7.0

More listings than last year, but even more sales.  Last year this week we had only a 39% sales/list ratio.   

March 9th 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.

	March 2015				March  2014
	Wk 1	Wk 2	Wk 3	Wk 4
Unconditional Sales	132				575
New Listings	396				1286
Active Listings	3562				4050
Sales to New Listings	33%				45%
Sales Projection	--
Months of Inventory					7.0

This week last year we also had exactly 132 sales.   There are 10% more new listings coming online this year though so the months of declining inventory might be limited.  

February 2015 Monthly Stats

Pretty strong February.  Sales up 31%, inventory down 8%.   The trend towards improving market continues at a surprisingly steady clip, with prices matching inflation for the last year and a half.   

SFH prices basically dead flat from last year.   If we see another strong month though this graph will jump.

Another way to visualize the change in the market since 2013 is to look at the change in inventory from the same month the year before.

Only sign of anything different is an increase in new listings over last year.  Haven't seen that since last May.  With more chatter of a better market, it might lure some potential sellers out of the woodwork this spring.