October Stats Package
Purp asked:
“Is it just me or did the REBGV remove the statistical packages from their website? I can find the link to stats packages, but it’s just the summary press release. There’s also a link to look up individual HPI charts for different areas / housing types, but these only go back a couple of years. I found the full stats packages much more useful (like the ones still posted on Fraser Valley RE Board website)”.
Well, I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but you’ll find the complete October Stats Package here.
Let me know if you’re looking for something else.
33 comments
Rob, Thanks that’s the one. Was I blind, is it still accessible from the website or did you pull it from somewhere else?
Look at the increase in West Van. 25% YOY for SFH.
Dave,
West Van is only up 25%………that’s low compared to Port Moody’s 42%
How is open house traffic?
It appears that a lot of the bear commentators since 2004 have been wrong. Is this a trend? Should we get contrarian when bears scream bloody murder? And when the bears silence themselves, is it time to sell?
If this blog was the Dow Jones and you shorted advice stocks like blueskies-(BS) a few years ago you could have retired by now.
Observer – why do you feel there are lots of foreclosures to come?
Benjamin Tal quoted in Saturday’s Vancouver Sun – when rates go higher, a lot of folk will have a doubling or more in their mortgage payments.
Well, if RE only goes up, perhaps that won’t be so bad.
I can hear the sound of crushing pain in the distance – its working its way in from the outer edges, crash is on its way.
I was half joking but also half serious as I looked south. Ammunition has been mostly spent. Nothing to do but wait and watch as we reach technical resistance (i.e. present value of drop in interest rates is close to being matched by price appreciation and recession effects).
ABC (6) wrote
> If this blog was the Dow Jones and you shorted advice
> stocks like blueskies-(BS) a few years ago you could have
> retired by now.
ABC — if you had shorted, say, BlueSkies Advice LTD in 2006, at what point would you close your short position? And would you have had the balls to hold on to the position through the “RE Nuclear Winter” of ‘08 – ‘09? Or would you have covered your position at some point during that time (and if so, would you have gone short again sometime in the last nine months?)
And if you were short ABC LTD now, how would you decide when to cover your position? Or would you just ride it all they way down to bankruptcy?
Curious,
WBWUCR’t'13?
How is Open House traffic this weekend – is the rain and rising unemployment data having any impact?
Or is it even hotter than October?
Thanks.
Attendedd 4 open houses on the wet side this weekend. Very little traffic. I attribute this to the weather and seasonality, and the realtors indicated that the buyers are in no rush and will wait until they get enough of a bid before they sell.
Market seems strong but traffic is light, from what I’ve seen.
Anyone else go out this weekend to open houses?
Anyone find the new record high on Gold this evening interesting?
What is gold telling us? (if anything at all)
House prices – friking insane, from my vantage point – I can find not one single way to justify this insane market. Note, I also could not justify the tech bubble market, and it went on for years longer than I thought it could. Nortel too. That said, this market is loooong in the tooth. Can anyone see (as I guesstimate could occur) listings starting to rise (I feel like the boy who cried wolf on this one) and sales starting to slip soon? Can anyone see the 2010 #’s (sales volumes) come in way way below 2009, as we get into early Spring and start to compare to those numbers year over year? This insanity should stop soon (is my guess), even before interest rates rise….unemployment higher, everyone on the ship, and leaks everywhere that I look….stores closing, businesses closing, higher dollar killing the tourism trade…the big Olympic fantasy is about to occur and then will pass into history – then what?
I say we are about to turn, soon – when….jeez, I’ve almost (almost!) given up guessing – still, I think it should happen as soon as now…now we are getting worse than average weather (vs. record sunshine before), dark days, unemployment starting to become a daily worry for many…and the lower rates…well, that’s now pretty much baked into the cake….so…..now…what….I think the delusion is ending in the outer burbs, and I say For Sale signs start to be more common, and in the next month or so we see New Price and Reduced start to pop up…or perhaps this is just wishful thinking – time will tell.
Anyone think we could tip over like NOW?
WoW/12… In the hinterlands, it’s already a ’done deal’… coming soon to a theatre near you…
Until then, and speaking of zombie cultures/’shorts’ – WhyBuy, et al… you may enjoy the following think piece (this weekend’s best), courtesy NewsWeek…
Is America Losing Its Mojo?…
http://tinyurl.com/ykp7xf8
HP13…thanks…I go out to the valley to see relatives every few months – on my drive back a few weeks ago, I was SHOCKED at the number of For Lease signs (retail, commercial and industrial). Also, lots of real estate developments that are done and STILL actively selling units…and it just seemed like real estate was what most of the economic activity was centred upon and that it also seemed…tired…perhaps that’s just my point of view thought, I am (addmitedly!) biased…
done deal in the hinterlands – please expand on this and on how you think it will come to a theatre near me, in the centre of the red hot market – how do you see this playing out?
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/GI.20091113.escenic_1362404/GIStory/
RBC predicting dollar parity by Feb 2010, and a V shaped recovery of the housing market in
western canada.
Wow,
One of the few hopes on the horizon can be seen in the rental of 2 bedroom suites downtown. That might become the implosion’s core, post-Olympics. Right now, everyone and their dog has a 2-bed furnished Ikea special parked in the 3,000/month to 10,000/month range on craigslist with no takers.
In 60 to 80 days from now, it might dawn on these folks that no one is coming to rent their apartments for the Olympics. At what point to these people lower their prices to the over-supplied, unfurnished 2500/month range? And then drop again to the 2,000-2,200/month mark? What happens when everyone does it at the same time to luke warm response from renters who prefer lower priced units? Maybe a bunch of them give up on being landlords and cash out before everyone else does. Maybe… just maybe…a bunch of them do it at the same time, ie: March-July. Or maybe they don’t believe the party is over and hold off until after the HST comes in, thinking there will be a rush for pre-owned properties? It could get interesting. It’s already pretty interesting as a renter.
WestsideBuyer’s comment above (#11) archived at Vancouver RE Anecdote Archive.
Anybody with good first or second hand stories reflective of activity or sentiment in the Vancouver RE market, please send them on to VREAA.
VD, very interesting analysis. Thx.
Purp:
I’m not sure where you used to find it (I get it from Realtorlink.org), but its also usually emailed to me, and this month it didn’t turn up. I speculated with another blog reader (only half-seriously) that Agent Will and I were the reason. We attended a round table on social media at the Board and at one point we questioned staff on how they released the stats. They advised that they emailed us first, and then outlets like the Sun, and then (and I’m guessing now) put it on the website you’ve been using. We made the point that the Board should make that stuff available to members, and members should then choose whether or not they want to make it available to the public, as a method of differentiating ourselves from each other – (Old Fashion info hoarding realtor might say “I’m not sharing” while I could say “I’m putting the release on my host and publishing a link”).
I never imagined that the Board would react so quickly, but I’m also not too surprised if that is indeed the reason (they can be very responsive to members, that’s for sure). I’ll try to be on it faster next month.
COMMENT DELETED AS A PENALTY FOR NOT FOLLOWING SIMPLE ATTRIBUTION RULES. TRY AGAIN LATER.
VD, I agree, herd mentality – see Garth exerpt above – we just need greed to turn back to fear.
There are NO fundamentals to support this market. None at all….(except for that one niggling one, of buyers willing to outbid oneanother to buy…but except for that little one, none other left)….
any guesses as to what is the catalyst and WHEN the herd mentality switches to sheer panic and capitulation?
gold pounding to a new record
copper/base metals up sharply
inflation?
I trust Rob more than her…but I must admit…I’d think about buying something from her…any thoughts on this top ten list?
http://www.buyingcalgary.com/blog/
Rob, thanks for posting the data.
I’m pretty sure I used to be able to access it here: http://www.rebgv.org/news
At any rate, it’s useful information, far better than the measly graphs they put on the website which only show 2 year trends and make it really hard to compare different areas.
VD @16,
Luxurious “O2″ on Davie / Denman St. has several units for sale and one of them (2bdr/2bthr, 975 sq.ft) is both for sale and for rent. The sale price is 975k, and the rent is $2500 per month. I just don’t get it…. why the rent is so low, or why the sale price is so high?
Gloria/16,
Keep in mind that the asking rent was probably calculated from cash-flow considerations (i.e. mortgage payments) and not market-value rent. You can ask whatever rent you like, but you may not get it — so the gap between rent and sale price may be larger than it appears.
WoW/14… it would take an essay (rather than a few anecdotals or aggregated heuristics) to properly answer your question… However – for now, at least – a short answer will have to suffice. Let me put it this way, as bad your recent ‘boots on the ground’/'drive-by’ impressions of the FraserValley were/are… things are comparatively much worse in the Interior. As for the GVRD, when the ‘cheap money’/politically expedient price supports disappear so will most of the recent demand… Certain micro-markets in the core will likely continue to buck that trend – but only in so far as exogenous demand (offshore/safe haven seeking) continues apace (not – necessarily – a given)… A recent RE piece appearing in the GeorgiaStraight was quite revealing (unintentionally, I suspect) in that regard… in so far as two of the town’s largest players tacitly suggest the YVR market is being driven by external demand.
“[Cameron] McNeill also claimed that Vancouver is the second most densely populated city in North America behind New York. He believes that our compact urban environment, coupled with a stable financial system, makes Vancouver a safe place to buy. In his eyes, this makes the city “the Swiss bank of international real estate”. ….
and….
[BobRennie]… “I don’t believe that anyone ran back to Turin or Lillehammer or Salt Lake City…to buy a secondary residence or to move the family to safety or to move some money to safety. Vancouver is on the map. We’re a world city. We’re a brand.”
http://tinyurl.com/yhou98j
Which brings us back to GlobalMacro effects… hence, to prognosticate on YVR – we really have to pay attention to what’s going on in the wider world and particularly in LosEstadosUnidos… In this regard, the following pieces are illustrative of the true ’state of the union’ – and the first one especially so… (‘Moment of Zen’ worthy – in the blackest sense)… The last piece, from Politico, is important in so far as it highlights contemporary developments/socially corrosive trends in the American polity (frequently mirrored in the GreatWhiteNorth) with severe medium-term implications (when populations lose faith in political actors/institutions/regimes – the backlash frequently takes the form of ‘politics by other means’).
[NY TIMES] Money Trickles North as Mexicans Help [U.S.] Relatives …
http://tinyurl.com/yjn83qs
[MotherJones] The New Dust Bowl…
http://tinyurl.com/yas2os3
[Politico] Parties cash in on hot issues…
http://tinyurl.com/ya9pyhd
[...] November 2009 · Leave a Comment Gloria, at robchipman.net, on 16 Nov 2009, 9:27 am, discovers that Vancouver RE price to rent ratios make no sense. The unit that she describes has a [...]
HP 28 – Interesting, heartbreaking articles. Thanks for posting all these thoughtful links.
Gloria,
Nice to see someone new on the blogs… as for your very valid questions… don’t ask me I have completely given up trying to understand this market.
Honestly, I think gold prices are more of a worry than RE. Seriously, what real value does gold actually have? You can’t sleep in it, it doesn’t keep you warm, you can’t eat it, etc. I’d rather “invest” in RE than gold any day, at least it’ll keep the rain off my back. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if gold prices crashed some time soon as it’s perceived safety as an investment is undermined by the fact that it doesn’t really offer much other than being rare and shiny.
Rob, is the boilerplate at the bottom (about how good Realtors(TM) are to the economy) routine, or is it new? I don’t recall seeing it before and a quick look doesn’t show it in older stats packages. I may be getting the wrong ones.
Is this related to the battle with the competition bureau? Care to speculate?