Listings

Unprecedented are the number of Active Listings FOR SALE.

August showed a slowing with a hoped for listing decrease. This reduction was eliminated and bypassed in September.

According to our BCAlink resource:

• YOY units listed in September grew by 27% from 247 to 314.
• Units Sold have dropped from 112 to 46, a 58% drop.
• Active Listings have doubled from 504 to 1053.

Dollar Volume

Average and Median Prices

Of note is that prices have not yet followed the above two graphs. West Side properties which are not selling at a pace anywhere near previous years have yet to adapt to the reality of the market place.

A number of pundits including Jurrock are claiming that market prices will inevitably drop by a minimum of 10% and as high as 30%.

The West Side community has yet to achieve these levels. Until such time as that happens, Vancouver Real Estate will persist in having very low sales volumes.

Viewpoint

The financial crisis fallout and associated fumbling will undoubtedly influence Vancouver real estate’s outcome. Without question the current down direction will continue. Anticipate that Vancouver may escape some of the panic, but our city will not escape dreaded flow-thru from global implications. Prepare for a number of months and possibly years, before a rebound.

Now may be the very best time to sell if you clearly understand that price reductions will become the hallmark of the Vancouver Real Estate market, at least for a while. For Buyers with a long view, opportunity exists.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it.

Call or send me an email

Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

*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.

La-LA-LA-LA-LA-LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

You heard this tune last month. Back then we speculated that it might be a bear’s growl. September’s Vancouver Real Estate Average Prices have parted the bush to reveal that it’s actually the chubby girl singing forte.

Sales volumes continue their slide accompanied by a somber blues riff.

Dave said

Last month Dave Watt our Board President, said this was a leveling. This month, Dave says this is a counter to “unprecedented increases” and this new picture represents “housing prices beginning to realign”.

Looking at this picture does “realign” mean going down!

A Picture of Average Prices

Courtesy REBGV

Of Hats and Rabbits

This non traditional market is in step with ongoing international events. While optimistic Realtors® have pressed characteristic mantras suggesting the fall market would pull a rabbit out of the hat, fall has arrived without an upswing in sales volume.

Selling your home? You still can!

However, according to BCALink’s numbers, prepare yourself for an uncharacteristically big hat and a skinny rabbit as only 1,595 of a total 19,852 Residential properties sold in September.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it.

Call or send me an email

Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

*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.

Transpose George Washington with HM Queen Elizabeth on multi-colored currency and you’ll get the picture. It is meant to depict the state of our local Vancouver Real Estate Market. No, it’s not a dream. Yes, the sound you think you are hearing is the right one.

It would be nice to deliver some bright sunny news, but that news may be at the other end of the pipe attached to this porcelain bowl. The latest numbers from the board are not pretty and serve to confirm the path traveled since the beginning of this year.

Considering all the other news from the south and east this might just be the time to reach for the Tylenol.

On The Bright Side

Yes there is one! There are homes selling, just not as many!

On the “could it be worse scale”, the positive is that we really do have a much stronger banking system. This single aspect of our financial system serves us well in that while we will hurt a bit we won’t suffer the extent of pain and financial catastrophe being endured by our southern neighbors. It’s times like these when being a Canadian is defining our difference.

According To

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver

Highlights

Residential Sales Down 42.9% 09/08 - 1,585 09/07 - 2,776

New Listings Residential Increase 28.8% 09/08 - 6,142 09/07 - 4,770

Detached Sales

Sales - 09/08 - 546 Sales - 09/07 - 1099

DOWN - 50.3%

May - Sept 2008 Housing Price Index Down - 5.8%

Apartment Sales

Sales - 09/08 - 764 Sales - 09/07 - 1177

DOWN - 5.1%

May - Sept 2008 Housing Price Index Down - 5.2%

Attached Sales

Sales - 09/08 - 450 Sales - 09/07 - 775

DOWN - 41.9%

May - Sept 2008 Housing Price Index Down - 5.2%

Dave Says:

“After five years of unprecedented increases, housing prices are beginning to realign,” REBGV president, Dave Watt said. “Although the economic situation in the United States has affected consumer confidence globally, the consensus view remains that our local housing market is underpinned by solid economic fundamentals.”

I Say:

I like Dave he’s a smart nice guy. I guess I’m a bit cranky because I have taken exception to his words! Dave, doesn’t “realign” mean down? Isn’t the meaning of down the opposite of “unprecedented increase”. Come on Dave, DOWN, while not as nice, is more to the point. Stop the BS please. I agree that truth in plain talk can be brutal, but it’s time for straight talk. Real Estate is full of it most of the time, and with world conditions such as they are we need clarity from our leaders.

If the consensus you speak of is really a consensus, then it must be a consensus bereft of this board’s statistical facts. These numbers show a market continuing it’s slide.

Seeking reason in Dave’s statement one asks if in fact the “underpinning” he speaks of has unpinned the Vancouver Market?

Perhaps Evan Esar had it right when he said: Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.

What do You Say

Flush with opinion? What do you really think of this market? Just remember, YatterMatters is a family channel.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it. Call or send me an email, Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

*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.

Nestled on a quiet street 1 block from walking paths, golf and Langara College. 2496 sq. ft.

Features:

• Cove ceilings
• Gas fireplaces
• New real oak floors
• 4 bedrooms up
• Den on main
• Ready to rent suite.
• High quality raised panel oak kitchen cabinets, with tile floors.
• Family room with fireplace
• 3 zone Hot Water Heat
• Private safe for your valuables
• Upper deck with view of mountains

Family Home

A true family home in a great neighborhood.

$825,000

Call now 604.657.6236 for a private viewing.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it.

Call or send me an email

Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

*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.

Cosmologists have proposed that the universe began with a big bang.

Star Dust

During the past week much of it was found in Washington. The leaders of the greatest financial power in the world who normally are great at using their boots to kick ass anywhere on the globe can’t figure out how to tie them up.

Fools

After a day of watching markets tumble, reading far reaching analysis and reflecting on it’s meaning, one wonders if what precipitated the big bang was really nothing more a coalescing of fools on a hill?

Aftershock

The reverberations of indecisiveness has and will continue to be felt around the world. With an aftershock is yet to be understood, Canadian leaders and pundits continue to assure us that our banking system will buffer us from the blast.

Impact

Who among them truly knows what the final impact might be? It’s akin to pinning the tale on the donkey, the effect known only when the blind fold is off . What may be discovered is another big bang that forever changes our universe.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it.

Call or send me an email

Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

*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.

West of Main

Close to Langara College, golf, Oakridge, Canadaline, bus transit and is 15 minutes by bicycle to VGH.

SPOTLESS

This home is immaculate. In fact, it is one of the tidiest homes I have ever had the privilege of selling.

Full Details

YATTERS.COM

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it.

Call or send me an email

Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

*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.

ScotiaCapital’s Derek Holt and Karen Cordes have taken their gloves off.

The bottom line is that we do believe there to be considerable downsides to the Canadian housing market, but that comparisons of Canadian mortgage market prospects to the U.S. experience are off-base.

Holt and Cordes Highlights

• Debt Growth

They say: “Canadian debt growth relative to incomes over recent years has been on par with the U.S. experience. Ergo, one is led to conclude, Canada must face similar stresses to its own housing and mortgage markets.” “Nonsense!”

• Leverage — night and day comparisons

They say: “Canada’s ratio of household debt-to-income is much lower than the U.S.”

• Canadian mortgage markets are fundamentally healthier than the U.S.

They say: “Canada’s subprime market is small (5-6% of outstanding mortgages) whereas the U.S. share peaked at about three times that.”

• Canadian mortgages are funded, underwritten, and enforced in a totally different manner

They say: “Canada’s funding model is completely different from the U.S.”

Knuckle Fight

This is great! In direct opposition to yesterday’s Wolf and Kwan report from Merrill Lynch that raised many eyebrows in the Vancouver Real Estate market, one of the oldest respected banks in Canada is now laying it on the line.

It’s the 2nd round. The crowd roars as this jab to the eye is certain to open a cut.

Help Is At Hand

I’m off to get the Vancouver Market Medical Kit.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it.

Call or send me an email

Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

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

SCOTIACAPITAL REPORT here

“To some extent, we are experiencing the inevitable correction of a period of unbalanced growth. These are the famous global imbalances, which are characterized by excess savings and underconsumption in major emerging markets, and by negative savings, rapid credit expansion and asset-price booms in many western economies.”

Building the Track

Rare is a track that runs straight on a railroad. Securing the rails are steel spikes of regulatory bodies. The road beds on which the rails lay were surveyed, designed to last and built on the backs of laborers. The objective, build the best, most direct course on which the engines of industry travel.

The ‘Hoggers’

The plan seemed right. Unaccounted, was the responsibility taken by the “hoggers”, the train engineers. Though speed limits were posted on the tracks, few who drove the train abided by those limitations.

Train4

Along the line to this crisis, the “hoggers”, purposely ignored the dangers associated with speed. Previous financial train wrecks warned them to slow down. Treacherous canyons had appeared earlier in the form of the Savings and Loan bail out. Still, the “high ball” mantra prevailed, causing this last train to jump the track, diving headlong into a global breach.

At The Station

With tickets to the view the wreck, there gathers on the station platform, economists, politicians and grass roots pundits all ready to conduct their Crime Scene Investigation of the disaster. With hammers in hand, they line up, ready to drive the last spike.

Which Club Car

The journey to the wreck is provided courtesy of the Rail Road company. Seats are available in one of two cars. Club Car number one, is the BAILOUT. Posted signs say discussion is limited to salvage. The other is the RECESSION. Live entertainment is headlined by the Fat Lady. All those present know that when she begins to sing it definitely won’t be pretty.

Unsure, the CSI voyeurs ponder which club car to enter.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it.

Call or send me an email

Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

*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.

Hat tip to Johnny Cash - “I Heard That Lonesome Whistle Blow”

Swami Says

According to the Canadian Press Wolfe and Kwan’s lastest vision in their Merrill Lynch report on Canadian mortgages says we are on the brink.

CP Highlights

Down Side

• Canadian households are more financially overextended than their counterparts in the United States or Britain
• matter of time before the “tipping point” is reached and the housing and credit markets crack in Canada
• Canadians should be wary
• Canadians carry more debt than households in the United Kingdom and US
• challenges consensus that Canadian lenders and borrowers have been far more conservative
• housing prices are now falling and inventories of unsold homes are rising sharply in Canada
• will not be a transitory phenomenon

UpSide

According to James Marple, an economist at TD Bank

• we don’t feel there will be the kind of crash as seen in the United States
• housing affordability has not declined like it has in the United States
• housing market has stayed closer to underlying demographic fundamentals
• Canada has not had that kind of glut of housing supply across the country
• prevailing view - Canada’s lenders issued fewer sub-prime mortgages
• housing demand in Canada has been the strongest in places such as Alberta where there has been strong income growth and strong migration due to the oil industry and the oilsands projec
• take out the Alberta housing market, home prices are still rising
• house prices falling … but nowhere near the type of correction that we have observed in the United States
• Canadian residential properties are not overvalued - considering the strength of regional economies in resource-rich provinces
• Balanced market - the last year new listings growth outpace home sales

Slap On the Head

Says Marple: “Merrill Lynch - whose U.S. parent is one of the biggest victims of a crisis in financial markets that is rooted in the American housing and mortgage meltdown.” Do these words suggest a sense of desperation may be the root of their report?

Conversations

Coffee talk today with major mortgage broker found that they are running off their feet processing new mortgages with majority of purchases coming from 35 to 40 year old buyers making asking or above asking offers.

They Said What?

Didn’t the UBC Prof., the Vancouver Sun and our Liberal Friend tell us that housing prices and mortgages are down the drain. Yet the man of sweaters, Mr. Harper, is reported by Reuters to have said “I don’t accept that conclusion, not at all.”

Crystal Ball

I don’t have one! I’m not running for election! I’m not tenured at UBC! I don’t work at the Sun! Yet, my eyes still see a lot of FOR SALE signs on the street and while sipping coffee with a trusted source, my ears hear another story that leaves me asking, who is right?

My sense of it is this. If you pile all the economic Yays in one house and all the economic Nays in another, I suspect that piles will be equal. It’s possible, but only if it’s foretold in the crystal ball.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it.

Call or send me an email - Twitter or Skype me at YatterMatters.

Larry

*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.

Other Reports:

Canwest News

Globe’s Report on Business

Business News

Canadian Press

Financial Post

Flickr: Vancouver Real Estate 1954 02

Flickr: Vancouver Real Estate 1954 01

Flickr: Vancouver Real Estate 1954 03

That Was Interesting

About a week ago in the Once Upon a Time post I talked about Vancouver Real Estate prices in 1988.

Tea Cups

After that post one of my readers, Mila Wong, Mortgage Specialist at the Scotia Bank at Broadway and MacDonald called to say that the post sparked her memory of a box that had hidden itself in her house.

She related that inside were Tea Cups formerly belonging to an elderly relative. As she told the story, she remembered that they were wrapped in newspaper but wasn’t sure about the paper’s publication date.

Revisiting the formerly hidden box, she found that the tea cups were well protected wrapped in newspaper from the Vancouver Sun. Her pleasant surprise, the wrapping was the classified Real Estate section of Vancouver Sun’s homes for sale dated January 12, 1954.

FRAGILE Handle With Care

The paper by now was well beyond brittle approaching parchment texture. She told me that she carefully, very carefully, unwrapped a few cups of which we see the scanned result of her efforts. She graciously offered the paper to me with the hope that it might be of interest to take yet a further look back into Vancouver Real Estate history.

Not Often

You can spend hours at the public library or city archives searching for this type information. It’s not often that you are lucky to have someone drop it in your lap. It’s nice to know that others recognize such simple value and who are prepared to make the effort to pass their good fortune along so that other might share. That’s community.

Salery Commensurate

I suspect that with these prices the saleries of the day were commensurate with the prices. While it may have been just as difficult to save up and buy a home back in 1954 it seems unlike today’s market place.

I’m speculating, but I think young people today, have a much harder time of it. Got a story about your ability or desire to buy a home? Others need to know. Maybe even a politician or two.

Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? Always happy to answer it. Call or send me an email or twitter me @yattermatters.

Larry

*DISCLAIMER: Statistics Courtesy REBGV. While believed to be accurate they are not guaranteed. **Numbers provided may vary from others available as they are dynamically posted by the REBGV.