Vancouver Home Buyers Score Hat Trick
Posted December 1st, 2012 in Real Estate, Statistics | 
Hat Trick
Vancouver real estate buyers unlike the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, scored a November hat trick.
Average Price 1977 – 2012
Detached
Vancouver’s detached average home prices bounced off the top bar to drop deep in the net scoring an average price of $1,053,902 – only slightly higher than the low of last July.
Attached
At an average price of $545,658, Vancouver’s attached was defenseless against a buyer’s market slap shot.
Apartment
Bouncing and wobbling, November 2012′s average apartment price stopped short at $428,825. It is the second lowest average price this year – just above July 2012′s $406,366.
Vancouver Real Estate Average Prices:
| Detached | Attached | Apartment |
| November 12 – $1,053,902 | November 12 – $545,658 | November 12 – $428,825 |
| November 11 – $1,134,936 | November 11 – $565,168 | November 11 – $431,808 |
| November 10 – $1,043,348 | November 10 – $539,429 | November 10 – $416,702 |
Vancouver Real Estate Inventory – Active Listings
| Detached | Attached | Apartment |
| November 12 – 6,775
+ 18%
|
November 12 – 2,459
+ 14%
|
November 12 – 6,455
+ 9%
|
| November 11 – 5,741 | November 11 – 2,152 | November 11 – 5,888 |
Vancouver Real Estate – Units Sold
| Detached | Attached | Apartment |
| November 12 – 635
-30%
|
November 12 – 307
-30%
|
November 12 – 750
-25%
|
| November 11 – 917 | November 11 – 444 | November 11 – 1,000 |
Video Version:
*Percent = YOY
Photo Courtesy NW Sports Beat.com
Photo Credit – Richard Hodges
Always look forward to your prompt reporting of the monthly averages. Thanks Larry.
“Vancouver’s detached average home prices bounced off the top bar to drop deep in the net scoring an average price of $1,053,902 – a price not seen since the last quarter of 2010.”
If I’m reading it right, July’s average detached lower…
http://www.yattermatters.com/2012/08/three-arrows-down-vancouver-average-prices/
Only another 40% or so to go.
@Bof B
Absolutely correct. Thanks for keeping me honest.
Correction made.
@purrpurr
and then what?
Thank you Larry.
I wonder…will an uptick in sales of $2.5million places in Westside in the spring (being blown out for $1.75million) drive prices higher in the spring (despite a declining market, which is my prediction), or do we fall below a million smackers in the coming months?
Larry/others, any thoughts/opinions on this?
thanks.
I just have come upon your site and thank you for posting the information. For clarification, are the average prices for just Vancouver proper or other municipalities included in the summary?
@diggs
Vancouver as defined by the REBGV represents more than the city core. You may wish to refer to a REBGV map to identify the service areas.
@smoking
“drive prices higher in the spring ”
- this is probably unlikely although I get nervous when I see a flip. People still buy Vegas style tart ups.
“we fall below a million smackers in the coming months”
- that is probably a reality as there is little actionable support out there. The sense we Realtor types get from our coffee sessions is that everybody is waiting and digesting the mortgage rule changes. The scary part is nobody will really know when the bottom hits. By the time we get there and figure it out it will have passed.
The Vancouver real estate market is a box of chocolates. A best guess low may be early 2014. A better wish to come true would be a steady flat market for 5 to 10 years. Those markets are good for everybody. The reality is that some politician will screw the whole thing up and we’ll all wish we bought something “back then”.
“that is probably a reality as there is little actionable support out there. The sense we Realtor types get from our coffee sessions is that everybody is waiting and digesting the mortgage rule changes. The scary part is nobody will really know when the bottom hits.”
“A best guess low may be early 2014″
seems reasonable on all fronts Larry.
perhaps another 20% off from here (say, 35% in total) over the next 18 months, and then stabilizing and gradually moving higher….
not the end of the world…but if i can pick up $2mm place for $1.3mm or so, then not so bad.
i think we could see a bit more damage than that, so i forecast a low in 2015, but we’re splitting straws to some degree…what we can agree on (based on coffee talk/etc.) is that the market is currently in decline.
@ Larry
Could you explain this a little further?
“The reality is that some politician will screw the whole thing up and we’ll all wish we bought something “back then”.”
I’m not sure what you mean. This could be interpreted in a number of ways.
Will be downward pressure on all benchmarks until the effects of condo depreciation reports have come out.
Larry has a nice discussion on depreciation reports:
http://www.yattermatters.com/2012/05/vancouver-condo-depreciation/
Comment on macro factors at work. Normally I would side with the “real estate is geographical” viewpoint, but not when the macro factors are this big.
1)Interest rates: The US(federal) debt is unmanagable with even a 2-3% increase in interest rates. Rates are not being kept low to “stimulate,” they are being kept low due to necessity. This will end, and when it does, look out below.
2)The world economy has no driver. China is slowing, more than they admit. Check electrical usage, shipping rates, and inventory levels for evidence. No driver means no logical reason to believe the world economy will magically recover.
@smoking
“seems reasonable on all fronts Larry.”
Don’t yah just love it when it all comes together!
@ Mick
“real estate is local” is a factor but I certainly won’t disagree that there is much more at play here that is influencing the outcome. The ‘Much more’ is to my mind an unrecognized element in a home buyer’s decision process. For many including myself it is a very large fog bank hiding a bunch of ships running at full throttle with no radar or compass.
@not much
think about the history of how we got where we are and where we’ll go as a result of political punting
@yattermatters
Yes, I understand the fog bank problem. In my humble opinion, this is unnecessary as we have legions of well educated economists fully capable of deciphering any economic scenario, yet all we get from them is “Next year we forsee 5% GDP growth” over and over.
My point is we are being lied to by those who are charged with the duty of informing us. However, those same people receive a paycheque from their employers, usually banks, government, or investment houses.
No offense, but add to this the real estate profession, chalk full of people willing to call any level a bottom and an association which carefully constructs its monthly press release to persuade people to think the market is either hot or bottoming out.
All of which have an incentive to slant the truth.
Banks – Make money when people borrow. People borrow when they believe they will profit.
Governments – Want to be re-elected, and sadly, one of our new realities is politicians willing to skew data for their own ends. Wasn’t always this way.
Investment houses – Want us to give them our money to put it in the market. Needs no further explaination.
No need for fog if those in the know would just be honest.
@Mick
“educated economists fully capable of deciphering any economic scenario”
- while that may be true – they are educated, we have to face the reality that even they don’t have control over how humanity will react. I suspect that within every statement they make about this or that happening there will found in fine print a disclaimer or a plus/minus probability that the sun will come up tomorrow. From this perspective – educated ‘predictions’ amount to educated ‘speculation’.
“we are being lied to”
- well that is one way to interpret it. Another might be to accept that no one is capable of building clearly defined concrete paths. In difficult times we all wish for absolute certainty. Unfortunately, choosing which fork in the road to travel is at best an educated crap shoot often referred to as luck.
“the real estate profession”
- I readily acknowledge that I and my fellow Realtors are called a lot of things and yes we are known to say a lot of things that in many instances are on the edge of truth. By the same token, buyers and sellers tell us a lot of things that approach the same edge. It is neither is right nor is it perfect. Each circumstance, individual and piece of information needs to be weighed, judged and acted upon its own merit.
“All of which have an incentive to slant the truth”
- nothing new here. Whether its two cents or two billion dollars humans are prone to do what ever they feel is morally acceptable to them as a group or individually to get the upper hand over the other guy. In a perfect world equity for all would prevail. Sadly, we don’t live in one.
@yattermatters
I think we agree on much. And although I believe there are more economists who know what to expect than you do, I accept that many are convinced by their own wishful thinking, and are therefore not culpable.
Or are they?
Is it not the job of an economist to be wholly objective?
Is it not their responsibility to remain impartial and follow the facts where they lead?
Human nature is a variable to be sure, but the actions humans take within a given model, for instance the economic system, can be quantified.
Given the debt load of the US government, there are only a small handful of reasonable actions politicians can take.
Each action leads to a predictable end. Big banks like JP Morgan and Wells Fargo release quarterly reports detailing the possible scenarios of politicians and their actions, then extrapolating the logical outcomes of each action.
This isn’t released to the general public though, only to their investors.
The general public gets fed a diet of wishful thinking and best possible scenarios while the smart money usually does the exact opposite of what the general public is being encouraged to do.
I don’t like that this happens, but I won’t put my head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t. Things like this are the harsh realities of a prolonged recession where lean times bring out the worst in people.
@ Larry
That’s why I’m asking YOU what you meant by the comment. I can take what you wrote a number of different ways, but to be fair I would like your clarification. Or, are you just being “specifically vague”?
@not much
If you are asking for the chapter and verse of political decisions that set the course for real estate over the last 10 +- years it would drain my time resources to recap them so yes, in this circumstance I’m being vague.
I think you can also but that post-NDP win, Dix is going to piggy-back on Obama and immediately go after a higher tax rate for the top bracket. They’ll either initiate at 48% rate for a +$250k bracket, or just bump it on the $125k bracket now.
That ain’t gonna help.
@Larry
I’m just curious on what you mean by a politician screwing things up. Politicians have done many things over the years to loosen credit availability. Now that it has gone the other direction, the howls of opposition are rather loud with the latest round of tightening. With that the feds are being accused of screwing things up.
So are you trying to say they will screw it up by tightening further or screw it up and loosen credit?
Looks like SFH avg. price of $1,053,902 is now down 15% from the $1.235M peak in the spring…..
@not much
they have done both before
@Larry
You do realize that loose credit is exactly what caused the crash of 2008 right?
Better idea. Let’s adopt principled, fundamentally sound economic policy and stop trying to create propserity and avoid falls.
Right now we are madly doing everything to avoid the fall we so desperately deserve, and we will pay with our blood when it comes.
But now it will be 10X worse because we’ve grossly indebted ourselves trying to avoid the inevitable.
@mick
“You do realize”
- with tongue firmly in cheek “gosh golly – that is news!”
“because we’ve grossly indebted ourselves”
- that’s a broad net
@Larry
I guess I can assume that you are unwilling to answer the question I had to clarify your statement.
@not much
assume that the clarity you seek resides in almost all financial/political commentary made for the past years.
here’s a sample: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/10/29/carney-remarks-confuse-markets/
Was also wanting to ask – is it just me – or does that chart at the top look like a classic Elliott Wave bull market which is completed? Do real estate market followers put any weight in that?