Downtown townhouse market tracking
YLTNBoomerang sent in some extremely detailed townhouse market tracking data for downtown Vancouver with the following note:
Hi,
Long time reader and sometimes contributor to your blog. I sold my place last March in Yaletown (townhouse on Marinaside Crescent) at $890/sqft and have been tracking townhouses in Vancouver ever since. More recently (January) I started recording changes in prices etc. on MLS in a increasingly large spreadsheet. I thought you might be interested in seeing how this specific slice of the market is reacting and have attached this sheet. Please feel free to use or distribute as you please.
Keep up the good work!
The information in this spreadsheet includes square footages, new listings and price changes from January 10 until July 29th (today). Within the tracked time period for Waterfront townhouses in downtown Vancouver there have been 5 instances of asking price increases and 73 instances of asking prices being dropped. The entire database is color-coded, with red indicating price increases and green indicating drops.
We discussed options for graphing the data included here, but neither YLTNBoomerang nor I could figure out the best way to do it, so here’s an open challenge to Vancouver real estate market data obsessives & excel graphing gurus: Can you figure out a way to present the information in this spreadsheet in an interesting and informative visual manner?
Click here to download the XLS document.
Want to share a graph? You can email it to me along with the name you’d like credited and I’ll post it here. If you want to cut out the middleman (me) you can make a post in the discussion forum with any graphs or images attached and link to it in the comments below.
UPDATE: That was fast! Here’s a “day’s on market / price drops” scatter graph courtesy of an anonymous contributor:
UPDATE 2: Yet another anonymous graph-maker sent in this chart showing asking price per square foot for downtown town houses for the first half of 2008:
July 29th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Whats with Regiment square? This is their 89th day on the market and they’re doing some hefty asking price droppage, now down about 20% from their initial wish.
July 29th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
One persons loss is another persons gain
July 29th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Re: crabman’s post, I suppose that the contributor should give a p-value vs the hypothesis that the line is flat, but it looks significant to me.
July 29th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Do you plan on maintaining this list for a while, and if so will you be posting updates here?
Once this market correction really gets rolling this will be an interesting area to watch. It’s pretty hard to get ahold of information this detailed unless you’re a realtor and sometimes its nice to be able to skip the gatekeepers.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I appreciate your hard work, dedication, and willingness to share.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Gosh I thought flailing around and spouting broken English was power. Damn you Krrrish, you’ve fooled me far too long!
July 29th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Have you forgotten that Vancouver de coupled from the U.S. AND the rest of the world???!!!
It’s different here.
The Olympics, So many rich people coming from Asia they’ll have to start new airlines, THE OLYMPICS!
“The best time to sell is opposite”
July 29th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
July 29th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!
Oh wait, no it’s not. The market is slowing, yes, but falling? Nope.
Listings are up, sales are down, prices are…up? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the average price of a detached home is up 3.9% from last year. Here’s something to keep in mind when people discuss affordability and the merits of renting: If you have a $400,000 home, that’s a $15,600 increase in one year. On a $400,000 mortgage, your payment is (roughly) $2,000 a month. So your monthly payment when taken within the context of your net worth is actually…WAIT FOR IT… $700 a month. (3.9% increase minus your monthly payments) If you owe 400k on a 800k house, the numbers are even better. (3.9% of 800k minus 2k a month..but now I’m boring you…) Renters? All of it down the tubes.
On another note, while it was a sellers market for the last 5 years, the Harris Real Estate Group honed our skills with Buyers and now it’s paying off for us and our clients… In this “slow” buyers market we’ve had one of our busiest months ever, closing 10 buyers into new homes, while taking 10 new listings. That’s a balanced market, not a declining one.
On the plus side, it’s now possible to pick up some fantastic deals if you’re a buyer. You can take your time, negotiate hard and get a great price. If you don’t, we’ll walk away and find you something else. As sellers wise up to the current market you can expect price reductions, cash bonuses and free plasma TV’s. But sorry, no crash. No blood on the streets and no implosion of the economy.
If you’re thinking of selling, just price your home correctly and don’t be greedy. Aggressively, if you don’t have time to wait. Oh, and call us to do it. We may have a buyer for you already.
If you’re a buyer, sign up for our VIP Buyers Program to get all the hot new listings that match your criteria emailed daily…including some great deals!
Thanks for reading,
D’Arcy Harris
The Harris Real Estate Group
Top 10% of All Realtors in the Lower Mainland
These guys are hilarious, so bloody desperate. Look at me, look at me! Blah…I’ll let you wolves tear this piece of meat up.
So…my cost of living ie. rent is “money down the tubes” but interest payments are not. Also, since the price reductions haven’t shown up in the market details yet (you know, since this has just begun and is only the tip of the iceberg, yes I’m chicken little), it’s still safe to assume things will continue to go up. No mention of negative equity as that hasn’t entered their vernacular yet.
July 29th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Investors Alert: Get Paid to Play!
Gary Foltyn, our man in the Fraser Valley, called me yesterday about some serious opportunities to be had in Cloverdale. Cloverdale? Yup.
Sandwiched between Surrey and Langley, Cloverdale is the second fastest growing city in the area. (Surrey is #1). It’s a prime placement for commuting to other cities in the area and offers a great standard of living. You may not want to live there, but thousands of people do, and they’ll pay more than you think to do it. In fact, it’s one of the only places where it’s cheaper to buy than it is to rent. So what does that mean to you as a real estate aficionado? Opportunity!
Gary has recently purchased in the area himself, (that’s a good sign) and he’s put together a list of other houses in the area he saw that fit his specific criteria. The criteria is:
• Under $500,000.
• Over 2200 sq. ft.
• Less than 3 years old. No old tear downs!
• Been on the market longer than 30 days.
• Have a rental/in law suite.
• Requires no additional work
• Can be rented for more than he’s paying the bank… (cash flow positive!) Even with no money down. With 5% down the numbers are even better.
The list is available by request by replying to this newsletter or emailing me. Normally I would post it here, but the opportunity is too good to blast out.
Does it matter what the market does when you’re getting paid to play?
Thanks for reading,
D’Arcy Harris
The Harris Real Estate Group
There’s your next purchase browntown, krrsh et al, git er dun!
“You may not want to live there, but thousands do” Hahaha, oh my God, my stomach hurts.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:22 am
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/PDF/.....292008.pdf
July 30th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Cloverdale is of course part of Surrey.
Doesn’t inspire one to believe anything else he says.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I find it more amusing that they contradict themselves without batting an eye.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the average price of a detached home is up 3.9% from last year.” (goes on to explain how this makes owning cheaper than renting)
“As sellers wise up to the current market you can expect price reductions, cash bonuses and free plasma TV’s.”
So, essentially they’re saying, prices are going up, and that’s GREAT! Oh and by the way, prices are coming down and that’s AWESOME!
July 30th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Well, you just can’t:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/briti.....stler.html
July 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Another reason not to trust any bloger for financial advice. A good chunk of that $126k would have been going to the taxman.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Hah! It’s almost like they’re trying to sell you something.. and will say anything to get the deal done.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:20 am
paper gains paper losses…..
you’d have to sell to lock in your capital appreciation….. everything else is just BS
…and he does sound a bit desperate…
July 30th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I love deadpan deliveries like this. LOL
July 30th, 2008 at 11:21 am
So a good chunk of my salary goes to the taxman… does that mean should I just tell my employer I don’t want to get paid?
July 30th, 2008 at 11:25 am
LOL! Exactly! Their logic is ironclad!
July 30th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Too funny. So making zero is better than 129k before taxes? I’m glad your not my accountant
July 30th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Don’t recall mentioning gross or net in the previous post actually. Just drawing your attention to the fact that he stuffed it under the mattress and lost potential investment income. Where he invests it or how much tax he pays is utterly immaterial. He simply made a poor financial decision. I ‘trust’ you get it now.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The $126k figure is based on a conservative GIC rate of return of 3.5%. The point being that the cost for taking the time to think over his windfall is shared by the taxman.
Financially speaking that was not the best decision for sure but considering that numerous studies have shown the adverse effect of winning the lottery, taking time to think about it might not be as bad an investment as it seems. Mind you a year seems a bit much but that’s a luxury he can certainly afford.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Taxman would have taken about 50%, which would net him about $63K.
$63K forgone is not bad considering he had to figure out a few things:
a) His girlfriend would have found a way to piss away $63K in clothes, jewellery, etc.
b) She would also find a way to take a cut of the $3.6 MM windfall
c) Could have invested $3.6 MM in presales last year….hmm, how would that investment look like today?
July 30th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Top tax bracket in BC is 43.7% (fed and provincial together). He could have. Top capital gains tax (which this would fall under I believe) is 21.85%.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
This would not be capital gain….interest income would be taxed at 43.7% x 126,000 = $55,000 (instead of $63,000).
Good, his girlfriend would have another $8,000 to spend on clothes, jewellery, etc.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Your right, his girlfriend would have pissed it away on clothes and jewlery. THe logical decision would have been to get himself a boyfriend. THat way at least the could borrow the wardrobe!
July 30th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
You guys are killing me with all this! “Save me from myself!” It’s like asking your buddy to hold your money at a casino because you’re a compulsive gambler.
Maybe dude had a girlfriend he didn’t trust. If they were common law at the time of the purchase he’ll be in court anyways.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
July 30th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
“If you lived here, you’d be home by next Thursday.”
July 30th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
http://tinyurl.com/bigdrop
Oversupply and Compression: How the Median House Price Will Fall from $215K to $70K
July 30th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
How thw&^%$ could one of the idiotic trolls, who jester about on here, read that and concule prices are going anywhere but down 40%????
July 30th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
July 30th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
The overbuilding was not the result of meeting demand for housing, it was all about meeting the demand for speculative vehicles. Once the speculators are slowly roasted year after year by declining prices, then eventually nobody will be thinking that housing is a “great investment.” Once that belief system has been eradicated via everyone who acted on it being destroyed financially, then housing will once again be viewed as shelter rather than a speculative vehicle for investment or “get rich quick” deals.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:54 am
#3 Oversupply will drive priced down.
#7 Houses in outlying areas will be worth nothing.
Well #7 eradicates #3, they can’t both be true, if housing in outlying areas is abandoned it’s no longer housing and the oversupply disappears.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
September 15th, 2008 at 5:40 pm