Feb 2009: Sales up 94%!
From the REBGV press release:
VANCOUVER, B.C. – March 3, 2008 – Residential housing sales in Greater Vancouver rose 94 per cent in February compared to the month before, with 1,480 sales registered in February compared to 762 sales in January, which was the slowest month for housing sales in 25 years. Over the past 10 years, February sales have typically surpassed January by an average increase of 53 per cent.
At the same time, new MLS® listings for residential properties continued to decrease for the fourth month in a row. New listings decreased 25.6 per cent in February compared to the previous year; 20 per cent in January; 8.6 per cent in December; and 10 per cent in November.
“There are terrific opportunities out there right now, but with property listings continuing to decrease, those opportunities may be available only for a brief window of time,” said Dave Watt, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).
REBGV reports that year-over-year property sales in Greater Vancouver declined 44.7 per cent in February 2009 from the 2,676 sales recorded in February 2008. Year-over-year, those are the lowest sales figures for February since the mid-1980s.
Read the whole press release and view the stats in the PDF.
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March 5th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
“That is how Vancouver is being percieved right now by the International press.”
I’ve been through 4 countries in the past 3 months, and have seen no coverage at all of the affair. The only stuff one hears about YVR (when one hears anything about it at all, that is”, is Olympics, beautiful city, blah etc.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:44 am
read on:
#62 read on, believe I am as repulsed as you are by the Djiekanski affair and I wish it would go away as much as you do. But by sticking your head up your ass you completly miss the point.
The point is
If Vancouver is percieved as a dangerous city to live in or visit due to the presence of maniacal cops killing citizens with impunity then the value of everything including real estate is affected. This is also true with the recent gang warfare and the cops chicken shit reluctance to get involved.
Whats the issue, ‘if you can’t taser a guy from 15 feet away then don’t risk getting your pretty uniform dirty? The Vancouver justice system is percieved as disfunctional, it is turning people away from vancouver, that affects our stock in trade, get it?
Q, would you buy a house or vacation in Serbia right now? How about Zimbabwe? That is how Vancouver is being percieved right now by the International press.
March 5th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Can we have less of the Dziekanski crap. I’m sure you are very passionate about your cause, but this is a RE blog and you are completely off topic.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Goldman Sucks:
Thanks for posting this information. I did yesterday and was censored almost immediately. I also posted a commentary written by Journalist Kelley McParland of the National Post Newspaper which spoke directly to the truth of the matter and that was also hastily censored.
I also spent part of my day sending copies of the transcripts as well as Mr. McParlands commentary to every international newspaper listed in my extensive directory trying to push this issue back into the headlines of world concern. I think it is very important for everyone to understand how corrupt the Canadian national police have become in thier determination to subvert justice at any cost.
For all of you are as shamed and disgusted by association to the horrific murder and subsequent coverup by the RCMP as exposed during the Braidwood Inquiry hearings please write your MP, The Minister of Justice in Ottawa and the Tribunal fo Human Rights at the Hague, Belgium.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Sheeple are going to get fleeced.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
ted:
Give this man a cigar.
Either the economy will still be in the crapper 5 years from now, or interest rates will be much higher. One or the other.
Neither is positive for house prices going forward.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
When house prices crashed in the eighties (the last time sales numbers where this low) inflation and interest rates where high. This meant that people paid more in interest at first, but as rates dropped their mortgage renewed at a lower rate.
Right now interest rates are rock-bottom, which would be great if you could sign up for a 25-30 year locked rate mortgage like you can in the States, unfortunately I’ve only seen a max of 10 years in Canada.
With governments eager to bail out failing businesses with future tax money isn’t that going to drive up inflation? And when inflation goes up, so do interest rates.
What rate will people be renewing at in 5 years?
March 4th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I have been sending this to all the Polish Newspapers I can find on this site:
http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/poland.htm
Hi
I live in Vancouver BC where Robert Dziekanski was murdered by our national police. Here is the latest
http://www.canada.com/Mountie+.....story.html
I wish to tell all Polish people that without a shadow of a doubt the RCMP are lying and while the officer who killed Robert was being cross examined by the lawyer from Poland, his answers were so outrageously ridiculous that the judge had to beg the people in the courtroom to stop laughing which they did constantly. The RCMP organization is so corrupt here that it is impossible to get some of the thugs in the police dept charged with anything because they are the ones investigating themselves.
I wish that Poland would pull out of the 2010 Olympics until these criminals in uniform are removed from our streets
March 4th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
I’ll guess none of these people will be lining up for presales.
March 4 – Tyco Electronics announces 20,000 layoffs – 30,000 government jobs lost in PR – GM Opel may cut 3,500 jobs – Rheem closes the doors on 1200 – Sony Entertainment to cut 300 – Private sector cuts 697,000 jobs in February – 1,200 jobs cut at Windsor Chrysler plant – U.S. Steel to lay off 1,500 in Canada
Layoffs are increasing. I think the idea that BC is experiancing ‘ a death by a thousand cuts’ isn’t following the story close enough. Although the local media is silent on the issue it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
TLNBoomerang:
Whenever i look on MLS, its pretty much the same listings. I feel like i’ve been looking at them for as long as i can recall.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
strataman:
saw the same ‘copter i figured they were
after by electric bong……
March 4th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Off topic but I have a live update from Yaletown. There is an army helicopter making many repetitive circuits over the West End, I’m watching them from my den! Can only assume the RCMP spotted someone with a stapler!
March 4th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
The Path to New Rental Homes: One Broker’s View
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2009/03/04/RentalHomes/
QUOTE;
During my 26 years in apartment sales, I’ve heard on at least 50 separate occasions developers commenting that “even if the land is thrown in for free, we cannot make the numbers work on a new rental building.”
As a result, the Vancouver vacancy rates stands at 0.5 per cent, the age of the average purpose-build rental is 50 years plus, and local developers attempting to produce new rental housing are likely to lose money.
Crisis driven by condos, land values .
Some historical background, if you’ll indulge me. Things changed considerably in the early 1970s when the strata condominium was introduced to the market. This new concept provided buyers, including tenants, the opportunity to purchase and own their own suite rather than pay rent. Prices paid for condominiums were soon much higher than rental apartments. As a result, land quickly increased in value to reflect the fact that building condominiums was significantly more profitable than building rental apartments. Accordingly, except for very few special situations, the construction of purpose-built rental properties ceased. This situation has not changed much since the 1970s.
=========
Rest of article is quite good, fills in a lot of blanks.
March 4th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
The Greatest Depression Under Way
Gerald Celente
3-3-9
KINGSTON, NY, 2, March 2009 – “The Greatest Depression” that The Trends Research Institute forecast, well before Wall Street or Washington would acknowledge recession, is upon us.
The global financial markets are collapsing.
All the pundit’s cautious predictions and business media’s hopeful expectations at the New Year for an economic turn around and imminent market bottom were dead wrong. There will be no turn around in the second quarter of 2009 or 2010 or 2011 America and much of the world has entered “The Greatest Depression.”
The global financial system, built on endless supplies of cheap money, rampant speculation, fraud, greed, and delusion is terminally ill and will not be coaxed into remission by stimulus packages nor restored to health by government buyouts and bailouts.
Today, the MSCI World Index of stocks in 23 developed nations fell 4.9 percent to 713.75, the lowest closing level since March 2003, and its Emerging Markets Index slid 5 percent. The Dow followed, plunging 300 points, closing below 7,000 for the first time since 1997.
There is no stock market bottom in sight. The only figure that can be forecast with confidence is that the Dow won’t reach zero!
As the crisis worsens, governments will take draconian measures to prevent total economic collapse and public panic. We have cautioned the likelihood of such measures before. But the rapidity and severity of the economic unraveling now demands immediate attention.
Expect massive bank failures, runs on banks, and bank holidays. Even if deposits are FDIC insured, quick access to money is by no means assured.