3 Beez Weather Report

B & B

No, we’re not talking about your local bed and breakfast establishment. Instead we’ll exercise due respect and talk about our good friend Cameron Muir, the chief economist for the Real Estate Association of British Columbia. Mr. Muir, who with zealous nature, appears to have absconded with the the first ‘B’- for bull, in this, his latest missive from the front entitled “December Home Sales Second Highest on Record”.

Statements like this might make you a little cranky, a little scared or worse, impulsive. It might make you so impulsive that you say things that probably don’t need to be said. You probably would not say anything until you see more of the same piled on in statements like “residential sales in the province climbed 132 per cent to 5,703 units in December compared to the same month last year.”

While true, because we know that statistics never lie, and you should never judge a pile of anything until you’ve seen it all, statements like these need tempering, for as we know, last year was an aberration created by world wide economic forces.

Left we are to question the validity of the comparison in delivering foresight and meaning in interpreting today’s market. Then again, maybe statements such as these are meant to be neither and instead are to be accepted as nothing more than a pile of history.

Second B

Looking at the graph the BCREA has kindly provided for our consideration, you’ll note that this picture of the overall market shows that yearly volume levels have not matched those seen in the years 2003 to 2007. What then is the benefit to you as a consumer of isolating one month in 2009 and then comparing it to the same month 20 years ago.

Surely, there are numbers out there that are more relevant and helpful to today’s decision making consumer or, do we accept that the provincial association chief is just piling more of that ‘B’ stuff we scatter around our gardens in the spring?

Weather Report

You got to sometimes wonder if all the lights are on down at that office. Instead of the double ‘B’ whammy above, the missive could have been short and sweet in the style of a weather report summation which would garner a third ‘B’ – for Best.

That report might read like this:

“Considerable momentum in the housing market is expected to carry through the first quarter of 2010, before home sales begin to moderate as a result of eroding affordability and less pent-up demand.”