April Inventory Blooms
Spring is here and the listings are blooming like crazy. Both Vancouver and the Fraser Valley are being hit by a combination of fewer buyers and a greater number of owners looking to cash out. Here’s the REBGV listings chart for the last 4 years courtesy of Paul Boenisch:
Clicking the graph above will bring you to his blog which has additional graphs for sub areas- we’re seeing rapid inventory growth on the west side and north shore. Paul also tracks daily statistics on sales, price and listings on his website.
In the Fraser Valley listings are growing as well – They now have a near record amount of inventory. The following sales and listings chart for the FVREB was created by Mohican at Langley Financial Planning. Check out his site for more charts and detail on the Fraser Valley market.
It looks like growing inventory is starting to put some pressure on prices. Prices in all categories are up year over year, but the month over month figures look unusual for the spring selling season. The Benchmark price is down in all categories in North Vancouver, slightly up for houses and townhouses in Vancouver, but Vancouver condo’s and apartments saw their benchmark price drop by 3.16% in April. The spring market so far this year is looking markedly different from the last few years, we’ll see how this trend holds up into the summer.
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MATHAMATICAL Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Say it isn’t so! Price drop by 3.16%!?! I was told by my RE agent that prices in Vancouver will never go down. They even guaranteed me that prices will never go down. It’s going to get ugly real soon.
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Anonymous Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I can guarantee that no one guaranteed to you that prices will never go down. Many realtors may say whatever it takes to get the sales commission, but none of them would be so foolish as to guarantee you anything about the market.
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Anonymous Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Looks like many sellers have figured out it’s time to sell, but most buyers did not clue in yet it’s not a good time to buy. When the majority of buyers figure it out numbers like 3.16% will no longer be possible. It should really be more like 31.6%…
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Rock Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I can guarantee that your guarantee that no agent is stupid enough to guarantee that the market will never go down is utter rubbish.
I’ve heard it from more than one. But most are usually (slightly) more savvy – usually the conversation goes like this:
RE Agent: “Prices will never go down, and there certainly will be no crash”
Me: “You guarantee that?”
RE Agent: “well, uh, no one can make any guarantees, but I’m pretty sure…..”
Me: Why do you think that?
RE Agent: “Olympics” (never fails)
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Anonymous Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 10:41 am
But thats not a guarantee is it? A guarantee is backed up with some sort of collateral or legal promise to personally make up for financial loss if their prediction is wrong. If you ask for a written legal ‘guarantee’ no realtor will give it to you even if they personally truly believe the market will only go up. Empty promises to get the sale don’t mean anything.
Any realtor who guaranteed that the value of your condo would not drop in the last month would owe you 3.16% of its value based on the benchmark price drop. If you find someone stupid enough to sign that guarantee please let me know!
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hombre Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Well, let’s face it, most realtors are pretty dumb. The job does’nt require any education and attracts a lot of losers and dropouts who could’nt cut it in a real profession. The most important requirement is that you have to believe in what you sell, regardless of reality.
Anyone with a lick of common sense knows that the bubble has been inflated to the bursting point, and these realtors will find it ever tougher to convince the last few remaining fools.
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rx Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Saying most realtors are ‘pretty dumb’ sounds as ignorant as saying most renters are ‘poor’. For some reason its easier to believe that ‘dumb luck’ led these people to make money rather than that it was through any effort or thought. There are MANY realtors in Vancouver that believe the market is due for a correction, they just don’t all share their data the way paul does. Refrain from making blanket statements about entire groups of people and you’ll make your point better.
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Bankerman Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I read Quattro in Surrey sold out in a few hours last weekend, lots of buyers and big waiting list. I think the market is strong with buyers at a specific price level – they must have been priced attractive. However, the Vancouver R/E market is at the wrong price level. Drop prices 30 to 50 percent, you will see lots of buyers for downtown condos. Only the gullible buy now at these prices.
Will Quattro bring down the average sale price since a lot of condos go at a lower level? Their website says phase 3 ready to go soon with prices starting at $139,900.
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read on Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 11:39 am
b-man,
Where did you read this, if I might ask?
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doug r Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 11:46 am
I GUARANTEE that real estate is cyclical.
My parents bought a place in Abbotsford mid $40K in 1979.
Late 1981, places around us were listing for $90K plus. Eighteen months later, places were listing for $60K.
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emile Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
GUARANTEED!
I was at a party where this realtor became very agressive:
” Price won’t go down in Vancouver! NEVER! The lowest they can go is appreciate 4 to 5%. I GUARANTEE this. And you must believe me, because I am a professional.”
I dared to mention that buying in Vancouver now seems a risky investment. She became even more agressive:
“Don’t you know that everbody wants to live in Vancouver? Investment is pouring from all over the world. Don’t you know Canada has lots of oil, and everybody wants to invest in it?”
“Why, then, did prices go down $60,000 in Edmonton?”
That was the end of the conversation.
For sure, I won’t hire her…
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Carioca Canuck Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
The last realtor I ran into was at Sunridge Mall in Calgary. He was manning one of those kiosks with all the pictures and data sheets of various listings.
Wifey and I were checking it out and talking amongst ourselves when he asked us if we were in the market. I said no we are not and left it at that. To which he replied “Well houses only go up you know, you should be”……..
Heh.
I then told him that houses in Calgary went down 10% in the last few months and that inventory is soaring and buyers are dissappearing…..it was going to be like 1982 all over again.
End of conversation….you could hear a pin drop around his booth and the blood rush from his face.
I agree that not all of them are like this……but I have only found one that does not fit that description.
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Anonymous Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I think we should avoid the term realtor and simply refer to them as house pimps
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beatstreet Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Bankerman – I read Quattro in Surrey sold out in a few hours last weekend, lots of buyers and big waiting list. I think the market is strong with buyers at a specific price level – they must have been priced attractive
Link to the article is here:
http://www.canada.com/theprovi.....731c4e710d
Amazing how affordable on a monthly basis those 417 sqf places can be with a of 40 year mortgage.
Of course if prices tank, moving out before the end of the amortization period might be problematic for some of those who actually “intend to live in the suites they purchased”.
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show me the buyers Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I GUARANTEE that real estate is cyclical.
and it also goes up and down on a regular basis.
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Anonymous Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
“Don’t you know that everbody wants to live in Vancouver? ”
Hopefully we’ll be able to provide a nice selection of properties for them, looking at the chart we’re doing a pretty good job!
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-A- Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
.
.
<<<<<IT IS SIMPLY AMAZAING HOW AN URBAN MYTH CAN TAKE HOLD OF PEOPLES IMAGINATION.<<<<<
The housing bubble in Vancouver is one such example. It got started by a mutual fund promoter who wanted people to invest in mutual funds rather than RE.
Naturally, for this phenomenon to take hold, there has to be a smidge of truth. As for example, a housing bubble did develop in Japan, and in Hong Kong, but that is because both Japan and Hong Kong have very tiny population and very huge tracts of undeveloped land, so supply eventually caught up and the speculative bubble burst.
But in Canada we have the largest population on earth, the second smallest land mass.
Another factor, not taken into account, is that both Japan and Hong Kong do not have rich Asians, whereas in Vancouver we have millions of rich Asians, and oh yeah I forgot, we have the Olympics.
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jadeeast Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
“Don’t you know that everbody wants to live in Vancouver? Investment is pouring from all over the world.”
The business section of the sun had a story about business immigration in BC.
In 2007 there were 61 approvals….
http://tinyurl.com/6cxndq
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exx Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
so now condo’s downtown aren’t selling at the rapid pace that they used to, but Surrey condo’s are? I’m scared.
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disbelief Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
If you have no other means than buying a shoebox (literally) you have no choice but buying Quattro in whalley. You know a block away from crack whores and drug dealers with no teeth…. Great place to live in a shoebox
you are in good company.
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The Pope Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
There’s interesting commentary in the Globe and Mail today from Timothy Taylor (author of ‘Stanley Park’, a great local fiction novel) about what sort of changes are likely as the RE market transitions from a bull to bear market:
The full article is here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....hColumbia/
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MATHAMATICAL Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Wow, didn’t expect such a re-action to my comment earlier. Well what happened was I had a heated argument with my friend who is a RE agent back in January. I said a correction is coming. He said I didn’t know what I was talking about, that he’s a professional and will always know more about the market then me. He guaranteed me price won’t drop this year. I said if you guarantee on it let’s make a bet. I wanted to put up some big bucks and all he wanted to put up was a bear. We shook hands and placed the bet.
I saw him the other day and asked where’s my bear. He then told me the bet was for only the downtown core. I said that’s BS, it was for all of Vancouver. Anyways, I said fine I’m not worried, even downtown will drop by 10% by the end of the year. I’m his friend and can’t even think what he tells his clients. When the market does turn and some of clients lose out on their money I’m sure he will blame the US, the economy and the developers but never himself for the Vancouver housing crash.
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realbiz Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
oh yeah i read in the paper(stats can report) last week that whalley is one of the areas in metro van having the lowest income level, so that’s why they now have the affordable condo to match with…
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mk-kids Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
OH MY GOD! There is a Myths and Realities Part 2!
http://www.canada.com/vancouve.....1257d1195c
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mk-kids Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
And it doesn’t seem to have a comments link…
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scoop Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Mathamatical – I’ve made lots of bets for a beer, but never for a bear. Appropriate in these circumstances I guess.
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MATHAMATICAL Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Sorry, I meant to say a beer.
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MATHAMATICAL Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I wish I could win a bear. If I did have one I’m sure a RE agent would try to sell him a condo.
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Anonymous Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
mmmmmmm bear
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alexcanuck Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I’ve eaten bullmeat and bearmeat. Bears are tasty. Be careful getting hold of some, though! Be certain the bear is done before you bite. A bear will usually avoid a bull as it comes crashing down. If unavoidabull, though, no contest. Bears are MUCH faster than you think, once they start moving. I’ve seen a bear at full speed, once in Garibaldi, (away from me, thank God) And once in the early ’80s here in Vancouver. I dodged that one. I plan to dodge this one too, and will poke a fork into it once I feel it’s done. At that point the dreams of bulls shall become availabull, and I will feast, and put their bullshit where it belongs, in my garden.
Bulls rarely eat bears, instead they get fat and tasty by taking each others bullshit, growing fresh green on it to eat until that green reveals it’s temporary nature,winter comes, the bear gets full of bull and then sleepy. There will be fresh bulls next cycle.
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patriotz Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I’m his friend and can’t even think what he tells his clients. When the market does turn and some of clients lose out on their money I’m sure he will blame the US, the economy and the developers but never himself for the Vancouver housing crash.
One more time.
RE agents are commissioned salespeople, and the clients of commissioned salespeople are the sellers, only. Buyers are not clients, whether they are buying used houses or used cars. Everyone understands this for cars, but for some reason they have trouble understanding this for houses.
And when I sell a house, I want best BS pumper I can find for an agent. The job that an RE agent is hired to do is to extract the maximum amount of money from the buyer – period.
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patriotz Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Oh by the way, only one group of people is really responsible for any asset crash, be it stocks or RE.
The buyers. Yes, that’s right.
Asset crashes happen when prices get too high, and prices get too high when buyers are willing to pay more for an asset than it’s really worth. That’s all there is to it.
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show me the buyers Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
RE agent is hired to do is to extract the maximum amount of money from the buyer – period.
caveat emptor!
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anonymou Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
patriotz your market view is one dimensional. There are buyers and sellers and they are part of the equation. You have the used car analogy let me give you the stock analogy. There are both buyers and sellers. I can be a seller who has a broker and a buyer who has a broker. The broker works for who he represents. The used car salesman is hired by the lot. He is an extension of the lot just think of him as the vendor.
Just like companies hire buyers to make purchases for them some hire marketers to sell for them. And some hire traders that do both.
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krrish2 Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
“I want best BS pumper I can find for an agent. The job that an RE agent is hired to do is to extract the maximum amount of money from the buyer – period”.
Some point that can bring the buyers,sellers,and realtors to their sense quickly are:
1.If the prices are sharp the property most likely to sell quickly if not the property may never sell.
2.If the seller have to lose $100,000 from listed prices realtor will lose only $1,000.
3.If the buyer does not pay the listed or assessed price for the unit he is buying his unit and that perticular building gotta lose it’s appreciation value in the future the time of reassessement.
From the points above it is very difficult to cheat with the market only buyer to sellers and sellers to buyers market tip the top $$$’s towards buyer or sellers.
In Vancouver it’s Sellers market right now but sellers who bought future projects are selling their units on discount so they can make smooth transition to their future homes otherwise there is no panic in the market,Just the resale home sales were slowing down a bit as predicted close to 35k sales in 2008- because inventory of new homes are being released time by time.
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show me the buyers Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
?
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patriotz Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
The used car salesman is hired by the lot. He is an extension of the lot just think of him as the vendor.
And in the same way an RE agent is hired by the seller, to act in the seller’s interests. In both legal and economic terms he is an extension of the seller.
And that also goes for the so-called “buyer’s agent”, who is a partner of the listing agent.
In no way is a stock broker comparable to an RE agent. One, stocks trade on exchanges with transparent pricing. It is the exchange which negotiates the pricing, not the broker. Two, stock brokers have very clearly defined legal obligations to both buyers and sellers. Three, stock brokerage commissions are based on the volume of stocks bought and sold, not on the sales price, so stock brokers are not incented toward selling a stock at the highest price.
Just like companies hire buyers to make purchases for them
They certainly do, and they are paid on an incentive scheme that rewards them for getting the lowest price for the buyer, not the highest price for the seller. If you don’t know this you’re pretty thick, and if you do know this you think we’re pretty thick.
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Strataman Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
yup! right you is! so original too except all the yank sellers beat them to it..probably a lot of discount sales in the coming month heh heh
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cashisking Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Stop slagging Realtor’s. I’m a bear, but it’s not an agents fault people are idiots about there money. They’re just doing there job and the good ones deserve the money they make.
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krrish2 Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
“show me the buyers ?”
Here you go man…
April sales volume rose in comparison to March, to 3,218 compared to 2,997(+7.3%)you want some more?
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anonymou Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
patriotz”They certainly do, and they are paid on an incentive scheme that rewards them for getting the lowest price for the buyer, not the highest price for the seller. ” I agree this is a conflict of interest and a cause of the realtors not being honest brokers but nevertheless the realtor is expected to be honest and represent his client not himself. I have gone to a listing realtor when I was looking and told him I did not have a realtor. The guy smelled double commission and was telling me he could talk his client down.
And as for your comment that only the buyer causes an assset bubble. Well this one has been caused by buyers. But bubbles could be caused by different reasons. If there is a supply constraint due to government regulation or a monopoly situation and someone has market power I am sure you realize this could result in a run up.
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Krrish2 Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Strataman,
People who are selling single properties they are selling like this…
May 2,2008 highest over the list 25%
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patriotz Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
If there is a supply constraint due to government regulation or a monopoly situation and someone has market power I am sure you realize this could result in a run up.
That’s not a bubble. If the supply of houses is restricted due to government regulation, or a monopoly of supply, rents will be higher too. A bubble is not simply something getting expensive. It means asset prices are not justified by the income returned to the buyer.
Only buyers can cause asset bubbles.
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jesse Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
“They certainly do, and they are paid on an incentive scheme that rewards them for getting the lowest price for the buyer, not the highest price for the seller. If you don’t know this you’re pretty thick, and if you do know this you think we’re pretty thick.”
Realtors are also rewarded in the long term for making their clients happy, either by repeat business or referrals. The real incentive is not the marginal commission but getting the buyer and seller to make a deal so the Realtors get paid at all. I know there’s as much pressure on the seller to reduce their price as there is on the buyer to raise theirs though realistically in a “seller’s market” I think the buyer does more moving on the price. Opposite on the way down though…
It’s obvious from the stats that buyers are still using comparable recent sales to price the market. Do you think San Diego and Sacramento are doing this now? NFW. Nobody knows what the “market” price is down there and I’m sure the commission is secondary compared to ANY sort of sale these days.
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patriotz Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
The real incentive is not the marginal commission but getting the buyer and seller to make a deal so the Realtors get paid at all.
Yes, but the point is that in a declining market, it is not in the interests of the buyer to buy at all. But if the buyer doesn’t buy, the realtor doesn’t get paid. Ergo, the realtor is incented to acting in the interests of the seller, i.e. making a sale, even if he gets the seller to drop the price, because it is against the interest of the seller not to sell.
Anyone getting a commission on the sales price cannot be working in the best interests of the buyer. Ever.
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alexcanuck Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Patriotz:
One could use a different buyers agent for each property you have decided to bid on, perhaps? Just trying to find a limited and unusual case to get an agent working for the buyer.
Easier and more effective to hire one hourly to negotiate for you, no commission at all. Was that you brought that up a while back? I strongly agree, BTW, realtors do NOT represent the buyer! Period.
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Vansanity Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Building permits fall unexpectedly in March, led by Alberta which plunged 32.9%. Not to worry though BC increased .8%
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3fn85q
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I despair Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 6:59 am
My wife wants to move to Vancouver. Arrgggh! But I may have to face reality and make the move. With growing inventory, when do you think the rental market will soften up especially on the west side, say Cambie and west?
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patriotz Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Just trying to find a limited and unusual case to get an agent working for the buyer.
An agent is working for a buyer only if his renumeration is not positively correlated with the sales price. Nor can it be contingent on making a sale.
Since the interests of the buyer and seller are opposed, the compensation of their agents much be the inverse of each other, or at the very least not positively correlated.
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Holdem Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Just sold my place over the weekend and started looking for an apartment to rent downtown. After being an owner for the past 3 years, it felt really strange being in a place with 15+ other couples, filling out an application, providing personal details, hoping we’ll get selected…I felt like I did when I finished school.
At current prices (buying vs renting) and cash in the bank, I can suck it up for a while…
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Anonymous Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 8:39 am
patriotz,
you hit the spot! it’s simple logic. they should have laws against this bullshit.
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Mold City Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 8:49 am
despair: just make sure you know what you’re in for, take a look around at rental listings, and I assume you guys have jobs you’re coming for that pay decently? According to statscan we’ve suffered the biggest drop in income in Canada. There’s tons of minimum wage jobs available here, but living expenses mean with that income you’d be living in a basement suite with roommates, so make sure you’ve got the income figured out before moving to Vancouver.
I suspect that if our market is anything like the busting US bubble cities you can expect rentals to get tighter temporarily. Many people are selling right now and if they’ve decided to wait out a crash they’ll be looking for rentals as well. In Miami this meant rents went up a bit around their peak before everything came crashing down.
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I despair Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Mold City, Thanks, those are good observations regarding the mechanisms at work. Probably next year would be a better time to make the move, assuming there will be a crash of course which I think is inevitable …. but timing is so hard to call.
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jesse Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 9:12 am
“Anyone getting a commission on the sales price cannot be working in the best interests of the buyer. Ever.”
They aren’t necessarily working in the seller’s interests either. The marginal commission of keeping prices high is normally secondary to a sale at all and this I am sure will become crystal clear in the next few years. It is during a strong buyer’s market, and in the extreme bidding wars, that things go out of whack. I’m sure we’ll be kicking around the phrase “selling wars” at some point.
There have been discussions here, on Chipman’s blog, and RETalks about alternative ways to pay Realtors. I don’t think it’s a simple problem to solve. The best we can do is to educate people that they are effectively on their own when it comes to price negotiation. A Realtor I used in the past was very open about this. Again, I think he did this because of his reputation and the chance of future business, not because he was altruistic.
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jesse Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 9:19 am
patriotz, further to your point, anyone getting paid only on a completed sale cannot be working in the best interests of the buyer and often not the seller.
Other considerations can keep them honest to a degree but we all gotta eat sometime. It’s enough of a concern that buyers and sellers should know the deal.