East Side Surprise

Posted May 30th, 2010 in Neighbourhood SnapShot, Vancouver East Side |

Boundary to Ontario

It’s two days till the end of the month. We’ve had a look at the West Vancouver and North Vancouver detached market. Continuing this 4 day series, today we have a look at Vancouver’s East Side detached. Last in the series will be the West Side and after that it’s a new month of could be’s and might have beens.

East Vancouver is always full of surprises. In this neighbourhood snapshot, there are 146 homes on the East Side priced at well over one million dollars and one that is above two million dollars. That infamous Main street price boundary between east and west is melting. Viewing this snapshot you might think the same is happening to the east side market as prices rise.

Vancouver East

For the period covering March 29 to May 29, Vancouver East Detached homes experienced the following market activity.

Listings

Listings dipped from 1040 in March/April to 959 in April/May.

Sales

Sales dropped 35% with 179 in March/April to 118 in April/May.

Expired, Reductions, Increases, Days on Market

March/April saw 58 listing mandates expire but slowed to 38 in April/May.
Price reductions in March/April were 21% of total listings increasing to 23% in April/May.
There were 39 price increases in March/April and 38 in April/May.
It took 21 days in March/April to sell a home. It took 5 days more to sell a home in April/May as the days on market stretched to 26.

Average and Median List Price/Sold Price

Average List price

March/April – $754,159
April/May – $808,272

Median List price

March/April – $710,000
April/May – $779,000

Average Sold price

March/April – $758,083
April/May – $798,023

Median Sold price

March/April – $727,000
April/May – $765,000

Thoughts

In April/May only 12% of the listings sold. This was down from 17% in March/April. By most market measures this would not be considered healthy. Yet, overall, prices in April/May increased – why is the question.

The number of listings on the east side though declining, is still a shoppers paradise. However, with the relative small number of homes being sold relative to the inventory, it is suspect that the prices recorded reflect that few have been striking bargains.

Fact mixed with supposition is that based on recent personal experience which notably, is not a reflection of the entire market, the clients happily paid a premium to acquire a home with the fewest defects. A valid rationale in their case which when generalized, may be a long shot explanation for the overall price increase.

Further supposition based in conversations with several bank managers is that a number of these purchases may have resulted from the last of the ‘must buy now’ mortgages with favorable ‘pegged’ rates that were about to expire.
Sadly, I have no data to back that statement up and offer it only as a side bar to those conversations.

Ultimately, with these elements in play I can’t decide what this market is doing. With optimism it is expected that in the days ahead it will unfold as another east side surprise.

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*Disclaimer: Statistics Courtesy REBGV. While believed to be accurate they are not guaranteed.

**Numbers provided may vary as they are dynamically posted by the REBGV.

Reader Comments:

Best place on meth Says:

May 30th, 2010 at 9:27 am

Here’s what I see from those numbers:

* Sold properties had higher asking prices to begin with implying that better quality homes moved, lower quality did not. Big change there.

* Homes sold below asking this month, previous month they sold above asking. Big change there.

* MOI of 8.12 can’t be healthy for sellers going forward.

* Price reductions by the truckload keep coming in.

Everything is on track for the collapse.

jesse Says:

May 30th, 2010 at 5:18 pm

Another supposition is that more expensive homes are sold earlier as move-up buyers buy more expensive properties before they sell their less expensive ones.

jesse Says:

May 30th, 2010 at 5:22 pm

Of course the data don’t support that, unless June median drops like a stone!

yattermatters Says:

May 31st, 2010 at 1:51 am

@jesse
in this market if someone is buying before they sell they are walking on the edge of a very dangerous financial sword – I don’t need data to support that supposition.

Fred Says:

May 31st, 2010 at 12:37 pm

If you would have told me 20 years ago that a crack shack on the east side would be going for over $1million dollars in my lifetime I would have thought you were insane.

East Van. EAST VAN!