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Friday Free-for-all!

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It’s the end of another work week and the holidays are drawing near.  Let’s do our regular end of the week news round up and open topic thread for the weekend, here are a few stories to kick off the chat:

–RE/Max agent sells all personal property, predicts housing crash
–Mark Carney understands the problem
–Main street is the million dollar line
–Mark Carney speaketh the truth
–China boom to bust: 35% price drop
–Vancouverites are water hogs?
–US realtors had trouble counting for five years
–The most dismal place on earth?

So what are you seeing out there?  Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

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Anonymous

@DEFAULT NAME: ..open your eyes, bears……

Better get back to you piano lessons.

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Anonymous

@DEFAULT NAMEe: ….Will this rain ever stop? …

Yes, in third week of July (in a good year), but not to worry, it'll be back again in time for the PNE.

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Makaya

It sucks to be a dictator in 2011…

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Anonymous

"Sales Stats Dec. 12 -18
by Rob on Sunday, December 18th, 2011 | No Comments
New Listings 679
Back On Market Listings 38
Price Changes 329
Sold Listings 626
Sell/list 92.19%"

sales felt off the clift? open your eyes, bears.

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VMD

@DEFAULT NAME:

In terms of MTD stats, there were some interruptions in paulB's daily stats last year (only weekly's were available).

But at best estimates as of Dec 16, vs 2010:

Sales: down 11-13%

New listings: down 5-7%

S/L ratio: 89% (vs 96%), down 7%

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Devore

@Best place on meth: Markets generally like stability. Leadership changes are the opposite.

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Anonymous

Anyone have MTD stats with comparison to last years…sales have fallen off cliff, but not sure how normal that is…

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Best place on meth

You would think the stock markets would cheer the death of Kim Jong Il, instead they went from bad to worse on the news.

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Anonymouse

Will this rain ever stop?

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VMD

@southseacompany:

"Feb is also Chinese New Years. That’s when China shuts down for two weeks and HAM has time to come to Van to buy real estate (remember the HAM surge last Feb, flying helicopters and all).

Question is, will HAM (or the HAM hype) return this Feb?"

Yes they will come, to sell.

(as per Chinese forums)

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N

@patriotz:

"By definition. It makes no sense to talk about supply versus demand unless you talk about AT WHAT PRICE."

I don't know why you feel you have to disagree with every post you see. If you look at my first post, what I said was that MOI meant many sellers had mispriced their houses. Then Frank disagreed, so I went on to explain, in the post you are disagreeing with, that it was a metric that indicated downward pressure on prices. But you take a sentence out of the middle of the post, which was only there to walk Franck through the logic that leads to the point you are making, and disagree with it. Why would you do that? Can you not even agree with people who agree with you?

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southseacompany

@kansai92

Feb is also Chinese New Years. That's when China shuts down for two weeks and HAM has time to come to Van to buy real estate (remember the HAM surge last Feb, flying helicopters and all).

Question is, will HAM (or the HAM hype) return this Feb?

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WFT?

@Anonymous:

Boy are you smart. A smart guy like you should GI out and buy some condos today. Can't loose, right?

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Anonymous

poor bears always have to wait from one year to the next for their prediction. how many years now? 8 years? danm, it's sucked to be you!

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kansai92

Feb/Mar of 2012 will finally give us clear direction on where the market is headed.

If listings come back with a vengeance, then we are on our gradual way down.

Cheers! and drive safely!

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patriotz

@N:

"What 21 MOI indicates is that there is a lot more supply than demand,"

Supply always equals demand at the market price, supply always exceeds demand above the market price, and demand always exceeds supply below the market price.

By definition. It makes no sense to talk about supply versus demand unless you talk about AT WHAT PRICE.

What 21 MOI means, as others have pointed out, is that a great many sellers are asking above the market price. No more and no less. It does not mean that houses are "hard" to sell. There is a price at which all those houses will sell, tomorrow. There are always more people willing to buy at SOME price than there are houses for sale.

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Devore

@frank: There's nothing to gain from misrepresenting the MOI metric. It certainly does not mean how long an average house sits on market. In most markets, even in the most depressed US areas, houses sell very quickly to up to 2 months, or they don't sell. It's not like buyers will eventually "get around" to those houses. They're not selling, because they are not priced to market. Those that do sell "eventually", do so after price cuts, other measure to improve value (renovations), or just waiting for market to improve.

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ReadyToPop

The world's RE markets tumble one by one, setting the stage for a future with a lower cost of living for their respective citizens. Some nations actually quite vocal regarding their intent to end RE speculation. And then there's Canada…

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N

@frank: "Why are you over-compicating it. It means that at current sales, it will take 21 months to sell everything currently on the market period!" Most people look at it a bit differently because "current sales" is not something that we can rely on to stay static for 21 months. So when we say that there is 21 months of inventory, we really don't mean that we expect that the average seller will wait 21 months and then sell their house for what they asked for it. MOI is most importantly a metric that indicates the relationship between supply and demand. Traditionally, people expect prices to go up if MOI is less than six and to go down if MOI is more than six. What 21 MOI indicates is that there is a lot more supply than demand, and accordingly… Read more »

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chopper

@VHB: Hi VHB. I think Paul B's reported for all days this month. Which day do you think it is we're missing?

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Devore

@Makaya:

U.K. couple refusing to make final payments on an $830,588 Trump condo/hotel unit.” [for once, it's the developer that's getting screwed. No tears here…]

Well, they're walking away from their deposit, which would be around $200k, so hardly a loss for the developer, who will resell the unit at some price, and probably still make good money with that buffer.

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jesse

@frank: It will be interesting to see how long double-digit MOI will hold up in 2012. We know many lenders aren't touching some of the interior towns with a ten foot pole now, and 2012 could be even worse.

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VHB

December norms:

December

sell list sell/list

2001 2394 1856 129.0%

2002 2205 1895 116.4%

2003 2434 2301 105.8%

2004 2065 1764 117.1%

2005 2332 1735 134.4%

2006 1686 1524 110.6%

2007 1897 1695 111.9%

2008 924 1550 59.6%

2009 2515 2153 116.8%

2010 1899 1699 111.8%

Mean 2035 1817 112.0%

median 2135 1749.5 114.1%

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VHB

December projections

December 2011 month-end projections

Days elapsed so far 11

Days missing 1

Days remaining 8

5 Day Moving Average: Sales 72

5 Day Moving Average: Listings 79

SALES

Sales so far 965

Projection for rest of month (using 5day MA) 650

Projected month end total 1615 +/- 117

NEW LISTINGS

Listings so far 1091

Projection for rest of month (using 5day MA) 713

Projected month end total 1804 +/- 17

Sell-list so far 88.5%

Projected month-end sell-list 89.5%

MONTHS OF INVENTORY

Inventory as of December 8 13824

MoI at this sales pace 8.56

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frank

@N:

Why are you over-compicating it. It means that at current sales, it will take 21 months to sell everything currently on the market period!

This is the level US cities like Miami and Vegas saw major price reductions and they are here too with year-on year down 10% or more.

Put another way, every month only 4% of the total inventory sells. If we hit a recession and owners who have kept their homes off the market, have to wade in, then inventory will balloon and prices will fall quickly in my opinion.

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