A minister shakes a finger at a business trying to compete within legal limits*, and the business abides. Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be “free market” and such?

—————————————-
* the wisdom of laws and limits is a different story.

Tsur isn’t stupid. He knows exactly which side of his bread is buttered. He probably won’t lie, but we won’t get anything directly bearish from him. The closest we’ll get is him acknowledging some known facts and add a vaguely bearish statement with a qualifier.

“Hey, we know that [HPI is down/sales are slow/there are a lot of inventory], and maybe [the next decade will not mirror the last decade/the demand curve will readjust/the price will gradually rationalize] if [the interest rate increases/there’s an external shock to the economy/black swan event/there’s no more appetite for RE investment]”

With these guys, what they don’t say matters more than what they do say.

“Sounds like Tsur is turning bearish”

Tsur commented about an “interesting dynamic at play” with the near cessation of the investor immigrant program. The moderator, Jim Sutherland, made mention of investor immigrants using other provinces as means to get into Canada but speculated most were destined for Vancouver.

Also Sutherland referenced the good work done here and on other blogs on the MOI and house prices.

I know Somerville gets a hard time around here but he brought some decent stuff to the debate.

The VCI army seems fatigued as of late.

Bulls are scared Bears are bored ..

I must admit, real estate analysis isn’t as fun as it used to be. Vancouver real estate is like those villains in a low budget movie that gets shot ten times and still is kind of trying to make a come back. You know the villain is going to be dead in a few minutes but why won’t he die already.

The worst will be the post hemorrhaging twitches

@62:

Yeah the whole “Richmond median price drop” thread is gone on the Whisperer’s site. Garth still has the discussion up on one of his posts (Mar 19th)…if anybody cares to read it.

I guess somebody made some threats…..

@Paul #51

As a spy on the battle field what are you seeing?

I’ve noted a considerable pick up in sales 63% sales to list.

There was a point where I would automatically and mentally multiply the sales by four and compare it to see if it was above or below the New Listings numbers. Perhaps it is spring.

@59 – It’s Vancouver Price Drop. Google it.

Any time a new MLS number is issued, the DOM starts back at 0. There are examples on his blog of sellers that have used 10+ MLS numbers already *this year*. In each case, I suspect they make it to the “Newly Listed Homes” notification that all the Realtors send out to their email subscription lists… which, as you correctly compared with Craigslist, is why they do it.

Teranet Summary The composite indices continued their slide to 6 months of steady price drops. That’s half a year of declining prices which trumps any seasonal argument. Upward momentum has definitely stalled nationally. Prior to this month, the national price weakness was blamed on the Vancouver market. Yet, this month Vancouver is up 0.71% (See below) but the Canadian aggregate continued to slide. Perhaps Cyprus is to blame or Al Qaeda ? Every market with the exception of Halifax and Quebec city are down from their all-time highs. Sales pair volume paints an even weaker picture with 6 markets in Canada showing volume declines measuring over 11% from their 10 year February averages. This includes Vancouver @ – 39%, Victoria @ -38%; these two are the worst of the 6 declining markets. Vancouver bucked the national trend providing a dead… Read more »

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouvers-vacancies-point-to-investors-not-residents/article10044403/

Total days 20 Days elapsed so far 14 Weekends / holidays 6 Days missing 0 Days remaining 6 7 Day Moving Average: Sales 120 7 Day Moving Average: Listings 214 SALES Sales so far 1624 Projection for rest of month (using 7day MA) 718 Projected month end total 2342 NEW LISTINGS Listings so far 3440 Projection for rest of month (using 7day MA) 1286 Projected month end total 4726 Sell-list so far 47.2% Projected month-end sell-list 49.5% MONTHS OF INVENTORY Inventory as of Mar 20th, 2013 16366 MoI at this sales pace 6.99 Continuing low sales and low new listings year sell list sell/list 2001 2315 3805 60.8% 2002 3392 5168 65.6% 2003 3304 4272 77.3% 2004 4371 5709 76.6% 2005 3938 5083 77.5% 2006 4033 5767 69.9% 2007 3582 5456 65.7% 2008 2997 5674 52.8% 2009 2265 4385 51.7%… Read more »

@39 – If Observer’s blog has taught us anything, it’s that DOM is the most manipulated and useless statistic gathered on the MLS. Don’t ever rely on it. The number of examples where DOM is 1 and the home has been on the market for 4+ years is unlimited.