Yatter Matters

60 Years and 5¢ Coffee

As you can tell from the banner, Bert’s is an 60 year old east side institution at 14th and Main. It’s a good old fashioned place where good old fashioned Realtors® go and count on having good meal at a fair price.

Speaking of Old Things

If you look closely at the middle bottom of the graph you will see an amateur photographer, that would be me, and my good buddy Norm Flockhart, he’s on the right, one of Park Georgia Realty’s best. Norm and I have been Realtors® for more than 27 years. In that time we have been through the thick and thin of real estate. We often meet up for an all-in breakfast at Bert’s and talk about real estate’s ups and downs, good deals and bad. Although scheduling precluded us from celebrating the 5 cent coffee Berts was offering, we didn’t mind, for during our breakfast meet-ups, the coffee flows and we always walk away feeling well fed.

Congratulations

We both congratulate Berts for their years of service. It’s unlikely that Norm and I will be able to lay claim to 60 years of business, but we often pat each other on the back for our individual 27 years of real estate service. We’ve both had a lot of fun helping people sell and buy their homes. It has sincerely been a pleasure serving our real estate community.

30 Days on the East Side

Active Listings	Expired	Sold
772 Active Listings	43 Listings Expired	54 Listing Sold
High $1,600,000	High $1,175,500	High $581,000
Low $165,000	Low $219,800	Low $142,000
Average $403,209	Average $407,783	Average $326,191

Reductions

267 or 28.9% of the Active Listings of Apartments and Condos have reduced their price.

Thoughts

The month end stats are a week away. I suspect that summer holidays may have some influence on the numbers we will see in early September.

Best Guess

Elections cause uncertainty and there is usually slowed consumer activity. Loud whispers of a Canadian election are floating around the news. The U.S. election is also upon us. While there are no guarantees, it is quite possible that due to these two events the current market may continue its slip well into December and beyond. Expiring listing mandates may rise in the next month. This will lessen the number of homes for sale but the uncertainty may deter buyers from making a commitment to purchase.

A Word of Caution

In the past days I have spoken to a number of mortgage brokers. They have rumored that they are encountering a few situations where Buyers, having bought a new home, are looking to increase their financing because they have yet to sell their old home. They are in the position of having to pay for two homes and are not able to qualify for the increased mortgage. For these folks, financial distress has come knocking. My thoughts: this is not a market to play the “buy before you sell” game.

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

Larry

*Statistics Courtesy REBGV. While believe to be accurate they are not guaranteed. **Numbers provided may vary as they are dynamically posted by the REBGV.