Login / RegisterLower Mainland housing sales slow, but more showing up at open houses
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver has grabbed onto one morsel of news to offer hope to agents.
"Sales in February followed recent trends and were below seasonal averages, though our members tell us they saw more traffic at open houses last month compared to the previous six to eight months," REBGV president Eugen Klein said in a statement accompanying February sales figures.
There may be more people kicking the tires, so to speak, but the board still reported that last month's number of transactions was 30.9 percent below the 10-year average for February. Sales last month were second lowest in the region in February since 2001.
Not surprisingly, this is having a downward impact on prices. The MLS Home Price Index composite benchmark for all forms of housing is at $590,400. That's 5.6 percent below the peak of $625,100 in May 2012.
A condo on Vancouver's East Side had a benchmark price of $301,600 in February, which is down 0.6 percent from a year ago.
On the West Side of the city, the benchmark price was $461,900, down 2.5 percent over February 2012.
Within the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver—which doesn't include North Delta, Surrey, or Langley—the cheapest benchmark price for a condo last month was $177,400 in Maple Ridge.
So, if you want in, this is the time to buy...(and no, I don't work in Real Estate).
Unless the salaries paid to people who earn their living giving haircuts or working in restaurants jump up significantly, it's probably going to slowly put a damper on all the high value jobs that require capital investment, or all the small businesses that get crushed by the big international multinationals that keep all transactions in-house and don't have to pay PST at various points in the supply chain. Good thing we chose to protect the work that can't leave BC (home construction, hair cuts, restaurants) and gave the heave-ho to the rest (film, manufacturing, space and undersea engineering)
Study the analysis of Professional Economists (Schiller, et al.) who have no vested interest at all in our insignificant "world-class" city, and try to prove them wrong with pictures of mountains and oceans and your myths of Asian buyers. (oh, re: Asian buyer myth -- take a look at Richmond housing stats, because they have completely cratered. Also look at Landcor stats -- you know, actual real, meaningful stats that show you who owns what -- and note that foreign ownership is about 2%.)
Realize that almost all the "positive" news you're received over the years about our market has been almost entirely via the Real Estate Cartel, and not from respected, independent economists who actually study stuff like this because it's what they do and NOT WHAT THEY HAVE TO SELL.
Examine the cases of other cities with real economies and real cultural infrastructures in the USA, and how they have crashed.
WATCH THE SPRING MARKET. This year's will be immensely important. If listings explode while sales go down even more, great pressure will be put on prices.
Then feel free to pee a little in your pants, because by the fall, we could be in a bloodbath.
Exactly. Every non-homeowner in Vancouver has been waiting for the "crash" for 20 years now. Time to get a clue. Canada is an immigrant country, and immigrants tend to head for Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. On top of that, Canadians continue to migrate west for work and the lifestyle.
Vancouver isn't going to get any less expensive or smaller anytime soon, and there's nothing any government can do to stop people from moving here. It's time to accept facts.