Tag Archives: price

BC, economy, prices

Average Vancouver selling price down 9.8%

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The problem with using averages is they can look terrific on the way up and horrible on the way down.  Remember all that talk about the ‘average’ Vancouver house now being worth $1 million?  One year later it’s apparently worth $735,315.  What will it be worth next year?

The average home price in Canada in April was up 0.9 per cent from a year ago at $375,810.

“It bears repeating that the national average price was skewed higher last spring by record level high-end home sales in Vancouver’s priciest neighbourhoods, and that a replay of this phenomenon was not expected this year,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist.

Sales in Canada’s largest markets are having opposite effects on the national average, with slowing sales in Vancouver dragging, and soaring sales and prices in Toronto exerting upward pressure.

The average selling price in Vancouver was down 9.8 per cent compared with a year ago at $735,315, while the average price in Toronto was up 8.4 per cent at $517,556.

Read the full article is in the Vancouver Sun.

BC, prices

Whistler Hotel Condo Prices Collapse

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The Pique has an article about some remarkable goings-ons just a little ways north.  Some hotel condo units in Whistler are now selling for half their peak price.

Those who own a condo unit in a Whistler hotel are sitting on great potential, but at the moment the units are not showing great value.

Real estate consultant Denise Brown with Re/Max Sea to Sky Real Estate reported that a unit originally sold in the Four Seasons Whistler for about $1.1 million was recently resold for only $520,000.

The so-called Phase 2 units in Whistler have fallen victim to the globally depressed financial situation, said Brown.

“We’ve seen the prices come down significantly,” she said.

According to Brown, this segment of the real estate business is at the bottom of the cycle so prices are good right now. She said the people who are happiest in the condo hotel market are those who are in for the long-term and have made a lifestyle choice in purchasing a condo unit in a hotel.

Lifestyle.  Got it?  Lifestyle, Lifestyle, Lifestyle.  Just repeat the mantra and you’ll be fine.

Then there’s this gem:

Kelly said this segment of the real estate industry has improved in the last six months but people aren’t willing to spend as much in Whistler as they were a decade ago.

“It’s not anything wrong with Whistler or that Whistler is worth less,” said Kelly. “It is just that people are prepared to spend less.”

It’s not that Whistler is worth less than it has ever been worth, it’s that some people paid more than it was worth.