Tag Archives: drop

FFFA! The house is leaking (money)

It’s the end of another workweek and that means it’s Friday Free-for-all time!

This is our regular end of the week news roundup and open topic discussion thread for the weekend.

Let’s get to it!

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

Biggest new home price drop in Canada
Average house price takes record fall
Inflation adjusted HPI lower than 2008?
New house prices lower than 2007?
Condo owners ignore depreciation reports
Cashback mortgages, great way to cash in on suckers
Removed all 4’s from floors, Vegas tower still doomed

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

Map of assessment changes from 2013 to 2014

VMD pointed out this interesting zoomable map of assessed property value changes over the last year in Vancouver.

Anthony Smith at HealthyCityMaps created this map using BC assessment data.

At his site you can click and zoom in to see whats happened to values in different neighbourhoods.

Interesting to see how tax assessments vary from micro area to micro area.

Dark purple represents a large increase, yellow is neutral and dark orange is a large decrease from 2013 to 2014.

Screen Shot 2014-01-30 at 10.42.02 AM

View the full map here.

Down is the new flat in Vancouver and Victoria

A ‘flat’ market sounds good right?

Not too up, not too down, but just right.

It means if you buy a condo now you won’t have to suffer the indignity of someone buying the unit upstairs from you for $100k less in the future.

So flat is comfortable and we’re starting to see that word a lot more these days.  This article uses it in the headline: Vancouver condo market stays flat.

So you might be surprised to read the following directly under that headline:

Although Vancouver has a reputation as one of the most expensive cities in North America for housing, condo prices stayed flat or even dropped last year, according to recently released assessment numbers.

That follows several years of the same pattern, which means overall condo prices are now seven to eight per cent lower in inflation-adjusted dollars than they were at the recent peak of the condo market in 2009, says one analyst.

Meanwhile in the capital city they’re using the same word: Flat forecast for Greater Victoria home prices.

And here’s what they say:

Although the number of homes sold for the past year rose by four per cent to 5,998 from 5,747 in 2012, the benchmark price for a single-family house slid by 3.2 per cent. That benchmark, representing a typical house, was $479,599 in December, down from $495,400 during the same month in 2012, the board said Thursday.

The benchmark price has dropped from three years ago when it was $515,500, the board said. And it’s lower than the $483,400 price recorded five years ago.

So here’s the cheat sheet:

Vancouver ‘flat’ = 7-8% drop over four years.

Victoria ‘flat’ = $35,901 drop over three years.

Condos pulling down Vancouver home prices

Dropping prices on condos are being blamed for pulling down home costs in Vancouver.

..because what could be worse than more affordable housing?

Prices on all housing types are falling with forecast for more price drops, Royal LePage is forecasting a 3% drop overall in 2013 but the largest drops so far are being seen in the condo market, which have fallen 3.6%.

“Buyers are waiting for that big decrease to happen but I think if they’re going to keep waiting for that, chances are they aren’t going to see it,” said Todd Talbot, realtor and host of W Network’s Love It or List It Vancouver.

That’s because industry experts say some sellers aren’t interested in making significant price reductions, and are taking their homes off the market.

“They don’t have to sell,” said Brendon Ogmundson, an economist with the BC Real Estate Association.

“You don’t find a lot of extra listings unless people need to sell quickly because of some financial catastrophe, and that simply isn’t in the cards, so what we’re going to see is normal demand and supply dynamics.”

Now I’m curious – what’s you best guess.  Does the BCREA economist really believe that prices are set by people taking their property off the market, or by the properties that are sold?

Vancouver prices now lower than 2011

If you bought property in Vancouver BC last year and were planning on flipping it this year for a profit, well…

Better luck next year.

Teranet has released their stats for September 2012. Prices are dropping across Canada, but still up Year over year.

This is not so in Vancouver, where prices dropped by 1.2% for the second month in a row, bringing Month over Month (MOM), Year over Year (YOY) and Year to Date (YTD) measures all negative according to Real Professional:

% change y/y: -1.42%
% change m/m: -1.19%
Year to date: -0.60%

The only market that saw a larger monthly drop in the Teranet Home Price Index was Victoria which saw a 1.3% drop.  Together Vancouver and Victoria continue to drag down the national index.