Open Topic

FFFA! Price Drops along the coast.

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162 Comments

Well it’s the end of another work week, and you know what that means?

That means it’s time for our regular end of the week news round-up and open topic discussion thread for the weekend.

Here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

–Sales decline helps fuel price drops
–Updated inventory graph
–Average BC price down 8.1% YOY
–Sell my imaginary house!
–What about the sunshine coast?
–Poll: Most trustworthy expert?
–The grim news
–

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

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jjss

Cold feet!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21823432

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Nanaimo

@ford perfect

Here are some Vancouver island stats that I’m sure you will find to be helpful:

http://www.coastrealty.com/new/public/market_stats_all.php

Months of inventory is sky high in condos and townhouses

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chilled

kabloona kabloona Says:
March 17th, 2013 at 3:12 pm

Really nice “bear-ish” tone to this article in The Province regarding Ol’ Kimbo’s attempt to bail-out of her condo at the Georgia Hotel:

“Former PM Kim Campbell sues to get out of purchase in falling Vancouver condo market – Developer sues back to enforce deal
By Sam Cooper, The Province March 16, 2013″

++++++++++++++++

I find it completely ironic that Garth Turner was her Revenue Minister during her short stink in the PM’s office. Even SHE didn’t listen to his prognostications!!! LOL!!!

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Short'em High

@Cam Cubed, If it helps form a better opinion, Mar/Feb daily expiries in the vicinity of the month end can be calculated exactly from the available contiguous @paulb postings. See the table below. date new chg sales inv expiries Tue, Feb 19, 13 259 93 106 15251 51 Wed, Feb 20, 13 262 104 100 15364 49 Thu, Feb 21, 13 217 77 70 15451 60 Fri, Feb 22, 13 208 65 103 15494 62 Sat, Feb 23, 13 Sun, Feb 24, 13 Mon, Feb 25, 13 232 112 103 15559 64 Tue, Feb 26, 13 237 102 130 15610 56 Wed, Feb 27, 13 221 83 102 15678 51 Thu, Feb 28, 13 174 102 70 15738 44 Fri, Mar 1, 13 241 86 72 15466 441 Sat, Mar 2, 13 Sun, Mar 3, 13 Mon, Mar 4, 13… Read more »

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The Shadow

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”

Cyprus parliament just passed the “THEFT LAW”
The govt. there just took away 10% from peoples
bank savings account. House prices plummeting
by 44%. CHMC will need mucho $$$$$.
Will Canadian govt. also pass a theft law and
remove 10% or more from TFSA, RRSP and whatever?

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Anonymous

Went to a sales centre for a condo development in NV today (Remix). The hole has been dug and construction is underway for a completion date of early 2014. Off the about 60 units total I counted about 20 have been sold. That doesn’t bode well. I was told by the sales person in the mock up that they are working on various “packages” that will be rolled out soon. Perfect. Now add in the two Onni towers at 13th and Lonsdale that received approval. Can you say inventory!!! Lots and lots coming.

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Ford Prefect

#155: Nanaimo: Thanks. Well there goes that theory!

Maybe the VIREB numbers differ wildly from mine. I take the inventory numbers directly from the MLS listings in the Comox Valley. I sample 6 to 8 days per month (the “matches”) and then just average them.

Also I have discovered that non-MLS sales by realtors are sometimes included in MLS sales. Apparently if a realtor is competing for a real estate award based on sales, he or she can bring in sales from shadow inventory and show them as MLS sales.

I suspect we have to accept that these MOI figures are a best estimate of a range of a month or more.

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Nanaimo

@ford perfect

The Victoria stats are not included in Vancouver island stats. Victoria has its own real estate board and pretty much everything north of the Malahat is part of Vancouver island real estate board.

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VHB

Using Troll’s numbers from post #100:

Total days 20
Days elapsed so far 11
Weekends / holidays 4
Days missing 0
Days remaining 9
7 Day Moving Average: Sales 119
7 Day Moving Average: Listings 236
SALES
Sales so far 1246
Projection for rest of month (using 7day MA) 1073
Projected month end total 2319
NEW LISTINGS
Listings so far 2761
Projection for rest of month (using 7day MA) 2120
Projected month end total 4881
Sell-list so far 45.1%
Projected month-end sell-list 47.5%
MONTHS OF INVENTORY
Inventory as of Mar 13th, 2013 16228
MoI at this sales pace 7.00

New listings are low. Sales are very low. Realtor activity is low. Bear stress is low. Real estate agent and over-leveraged fool stress is high!

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trackback

[…] INVENTORY/LISTINGS ARE HIGH: “I’m seeing big increases in New West, North Van, Burnaby SFH listings. Historical highs for this time of year. VW has stalled out; VE puttering along. Condos downtown nothing special on the inventory side. I don’t know what all that means except that our little crashlet is *not* a “Van has too many condos; it’s just condos; houses are safe from all this” thing. It is in fact inventory growth and sales declines are mostly a SFH thing, from what I see.” [price declines will effect all sub-sectors of the market. -ed.] – VHB at VCI 15 Mar 2013 12:22pm […]

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Ford Prefect

#145 Cam Cubed: Comox Valley: Feb. MLS inventory: 850, Sales: 36, MOI: 23.6

I suspect reason MOI for Van. Isl. is only 13.3 is because it is skewed up by low Victoria figure of 8.5. Certainly the Comox Valley was supposed to be one of the housing hot spots on Vancouver Island but the current figures put paid to that idea.

In the big RE crash of the early 1980’s this area was incredibly hard hit but both Vancouver and Victoria seemed to escape relatively unscathed. Many of us here at that time had to depart to greener pastures – yours truly to Victoria. It will be interesting to see if the same pattern repeats this time or if both Vancouver and Victoria also crash.

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kabloona

Really nice “bear-ish” tone to this article in The Province regarding Ol’ Kimbo’s attempt to bail-out of her condo at the Georgia Hotel: “Former PM Kim Campbell sues to get out of purchase in falling Vancouver condo market – Developer sues back to enforce deal By Sam Cooper, The Province March 16, 2013″ http://www.theprovince.com/business/Former+Campbell+sues+falling+vancouver+condo+market/8110518/story.html “As Vancouver’s condo market plummets, former prime minister Kim Campbell is suing a developer in an effort to get out of her pre-sale contract for a $1.8-million downtown condo. In late February, lawyer Bryan Baynham filed a lawsuit for Campbell against Hotel Georgia Management Ltd., alleging the developer delayed completion of her unit in the Private Residences at Hotel Georgia for more than a year, and failed to properly disclose changes in the completion date. In online advertising, units in the new 47-storey concrete tower above… Read more »

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Cam Cubed

@ShortEm I too have noticed that discrepancy, which I can’t explain. I have two guesses: 1. BCREA uses numbers from the last day of the month, while REBGV uses numbers from the first day of the month. There is usually a large number of expires between those two days which may account for the difference. 2. Alternatively, the REBGV numbers may include less property types than the BCREA, just like PaulB includes things like vacant land while Larry does not. Here are PaulB’s numbers from Feb: Feb 28: 15738 Mar 1: 15466 Since BCREA used the figure 15758, I assume they use the same stats as Paul B uses for the last day of the month (at least they are very close). Since REBGV used a value of 14789, I can only conclude that #1 above is more likely the… Read more »

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Short'em High

#141-#142,

Yes, that would be a wise negotiating tactic if the buyer suggests realtor forgo commission in the event of price decline in exchange for doubling the commission. BUT, if realtor suggests the same wager, buyer should be suspicious for the reason I suggested. If the realtor can somehow hedge his side of the bet, he is not actually risking anything. Buyer beware!

Regarding Wikipedia’s article on the Kelly Criterion, that principle was not invented by the authors of Wikipedia. You can read about it in any number of published non-fiction books if you like:

http://www.amazon.com/Kelly-Capital-Growth-Investment-Criterion/dp/9814293490

Kelly’s original 1956 paper is also floating around the internet.

Also, if you ever get a chance to talk with Warren Buffett personally, you can ask him why he likes the Kelly Criterion. Apparently he uses it for investment decisionmaking.

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Short'em High

@Cam Cubed,

Thank you for posting inventory! Since you are familiar with the BCREA releases, do have an opinion on why the BCREA number for Greater Vancouver is higher than the official REBGV number?

REBGV SAYS:

http://www.rebgv.org/news-statistics/home-sales-continue-below-average-pace

The total number of properties currently listed for sale on the Greater Vancouver MLS® is 14,789, a 5.2 per cent increase compared to February 2012 and an 11.6 per cent increase compared to January 2013.

BCREA SAYS:

http://www.bcrea.bc.ca/docs/news-2013/2013-02.pdf

Greater Vancouver Active Listings 15,758

Why did Muir add 15758-14789=969 listings to the REBGV number? There is a footnote for something else that says “* Numbers may not add [up] due to rounding”, but that doesn’t explain it. (My edit added for humor.)

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Anonymous

It would be if the story was true. Unfortunately people can make up what ever they want in the blogosphere.

People can also accuse other people of lying whenever they want in the blogosphere.

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Anonymous

“That is grounds for a complaint to the human rights commission.”

It would be if the story was true. Unfortunately people can make up what ever they want in the blogosphere.

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Cam Cubed

February 2013 sales and inventory stats are out from BCREA. Here are the MOIs for each of BC’s sales regions. BC Northern Inventory: 2044 Sales: 277 MOI: 7.4 Chilliwack Inventory: 1479 Sales: 135 MOI: 11.0 Fraser Valley Inventory: 7326 Sales: 867 MOI: 8.4 Greater Vancouver Inventory: 15758 Sales: 1822 MOI: 8.6 Kamloops Inventory: 1860 Sales: 143 MOI: 13.0 Kootenay Inventory: 2495 Sales: 82 MOI: 30.4 Okanagan Mainline Inventory: 5129 Sales: 304 MOI: 16.9 Powell River Inventory: 200 Sales: 16 MOI: 12.5 South Okanagan Inventory: 1526 Sales: 66 MOI: 23.1 Northern Lights Inventory: 239 Sales: 29 MOI: 8.2 Vancouver Island Inventory: 5017 Sales: 376 MOI: 13.3 Victoria Inventory: 3252 Sales: 384 MOI: 8.5 Provincial Totals Inventory: 46325 Sales: 4501 MOI: 10.3 Outside Vancouver Inventory: 30567 Sales: 2679 MOI: 11.4 Good lord, 30+ MOI in the Kootnays. And the rest of the… Read more »

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Democrats

“That special advertised price is only for Chinese customers”.

That is grounds for a complaint to the human rights commission. The tribunal may give you an award of 5-10k for jurt dignity Usually HR complaints are made against white men by racial, sexual minorities, the disable etc.

With our changing society it’s only a matter of time before the shoe is on the other foot and the white guy gets told “your kind is not welcome here”.

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Anonymous

painted turtle Says: “RE signs in Chinese: When I was travelling in Japan or in India, some signs were also written using a latin alphabet, so that more people could read them. I think shop owners could have the courtesy of doing the same in Canada.”

I think the vast majority of signs here are in English only. Actually them writing some of the signs using the Latin alphabet is the same as seeing some signs here in Chinese. Nothing wrong with either.

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Anonymous

Short’em High Says: “To learn about making worthwhile risk adjusted trades see:”

Yes I think I will learn how to trade from Wikipedia. LOL!

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Anonymous

Short’em High Says: “Is a side bet to win back a few percent compensation for the chance at being down 50% a good trade?”

No, but by asking the realtor to do this would tell you how confident he really was the market was not heading down. Vangirls friends might get the message when the realtor declines such as offer. If he takes it then getting 10K or so back is better than nothing.

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Short'em High

Says:…the house has not increased in 3 years time he refunds the commission. If it does go up they double his commission.

Is a side bet to win back a few percent compensation for the chance at being down 50% a good trade? A bet like that actually increases the risk adjusted cost of the overall speculation bet from the buyer’s perspective. A realtor who offers this bet is even a better salesman if he pairs his position with credit default insurance on the “buyer” (read victim).

To learn about making worthwhile risk adjusted trades see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

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painted turtle

RE signs in Chinese: When I was travelling in Japan or in India, some signs were also written using a latin alphabet, so that more people could read them. I think shop owners could have the courtesy of doing the same in Canada.

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vangrl

In retrospect, calling the realtor an “idiot” was wrong and a bit harsh … Proving that their realtor might not have their best interest in mind (unlike their friends and family) is what I’d like to see happen.

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