This is kind of amazing.

yvr2zrh posted this analysis of the percentage of property listings for sale that are vacant:

Across REBGV 19% of listed SFH are vacant and 31% of attached/apartments are vacant. So – 50% as the comment from Jesse is higher than actual but not completely out of reach for apartments. Some variations are noted.

SFH Vacant stats (number/%)(in order or highest to lowest)
Richmond 175 – 24%
Van West 148 – 23%
North Van 55 – 21%
Port Coq – 22 – 21%
Whistler – 39 – 21%
Van East – 87 – 20%
Burnaby – 71 – 20%
etc . . .

For Apartment/Attached, the following are the vacant properties
Whistler – 177 (42%)
Maple Ridge – 94 (34%)
Van West – 522 (34%)
New West 110 (33%)
Van East – 169 (33%)
Burnaby – 261 (31%)
Richmond – 298 (31%)
North Van – 115 (30%)

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So, even if you have people who just want to hold back, why would they when there is cash outflows to carry the property and the future outlook is for price decreases?

Those who just hold off selling, where they are actually living in the unit, and are waiting for prices to increase, are bound to die living in that unit.

Later today, I will post my predictions for the 2013 market based on my model. What is really helpful is the MOI/monthly price change graph. That has been a really good indicator of price movements. Thus, I will post the projected MOI movements for 2013 and then we can see where the prices fall. It is important to know that listing volumes are down from last year. This is sufficiently so that we may see 2013 inventory intersect the 2012 inventory possibly at the end of the Spring and then track 2012 for the rest of the year.

This will be interesting to watch because once we are down 10-15% from peak prices – how can they continue to say things like prices are flat and this is a soft landing? I would say any decrease of 20% from the peak is not good as you immediately remove even more move-up buyers and put 1000′s of people underwater immediately.