August 2012 REBGV Stats Mike Stewart

[vanpro]

LOL!

Hi HAM,

As it stands as of today I am ranked 152 out of all Greater Vancouver Realtors as per BCALink.

So that means if there are around 10,000 Realtors in REBGV, I'm in the top 1.5% of all Realtors in Greater Vancouver.

Within the last 2 months, I sold a house on the East Side and bought another house (and got a great deal!), specifically because I am optimistic about the future.

I did not sit on my money and wait because I thought the market was going to fall. I bought because now is a good time to buy because Sellers are concerned about the future.

Once Sellers are no longer concerned about the future, they will no longer be open to negotiating.

Like I said, I am not worried about the market and I put my money where my mouth is.

You?

I guess we all put our money where our mouth is: i.e. under the mattress or in the bank or other relatively riskless investments (bears) or buy more real estate (real estate bulls). We'll see who comes out better or worse at the end of the day, but history has shown that over-paying or buying at the top can and does lead to financial disaster - e.g. look at the US, UK, Eurozone: those that continued to buy right up to 2008 because they thought it was a good time to buy because "Sellers are concerned", got wiped out because it only got much, much worse for sellers over the past 4 years as prices continued to plunge, so those that bought at the top got wiped out - so badly that it caused the worst worldwide banking, financial and credit crisis and recession since the Great Depression....

[thinktom]

Well, the facts are actually the exact opposite of what Tom and Mike are stating..... contrary to Mike and Tom's statements above, their own Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver ........
......stats that Mike posted above......

Addicted to the drama, aren't ya Vanpro. Yes, Mike and I are lying. 'Pumping', isn't that what you call it?

Vanpro, the market takes a while to register 'solds'. Of course, listings are going to be higher the first week or two. ITS SEPTEMBER. The question remains will buyers come out of the woodwork. I'm not saying the stats are 'wrong'. Don't be stupid. Of course the market is slower. 30% is a MASSIVE number. But there are buyers around and sales are happening. We will see if the increase is substantial or not soon enough.

What we aren't doing.... is freaking out... like you've been doing on these boards for literally years and years, desperately waiting to prove yourself right about the dreaded Vancouver bubble.

"Vanpro- Established since 2002".

Here we go again: using the old "sales take longer to register" argument - well, that would be the same thing in the beginning of August/11 & the beginning of Sept/11 right? Point is I am comparing same time periods to same time periods in past years (just like your REBGV press release just stated, comparing this August/12 to the last 15 Augusts).

I am not "freaking out". I've got nothing to freak out about. Just stating the facts.

Tom asked: "The question remains will buyers come out of the woodwork. " Same question many people asked at the top of the various worldwide real estate bubbles from the US to Eurozone - we all know how that played out....Just remember where we are: Vancouver is all-time high unaffordability (approx. 90%+ of pre-tax income required for SFH) w/ avg. price of SFH at around $1.14M for ALL of Greater Vancouver - these are WAY worse numbers than any real estate market in the world before their bubbles imploded....

Allow me to clarify. It takes a while for the Fall market to begin to roll, not literally taking longer to register.

[thinktom]

Tom, don't give me the credit. I copied and pasted that from the comments section of the article.

I was aware of that. I just meant I forwarded it on for her opinion.

[timber2012]

Here we go again: using the old "sales take longer to register" argument - well, that would be the same thing in the beginning of August/11 & the beginning of Sept/11 right? Point is I am comparing same time periods to same time periods in past years (just like your REBGV press release just stated, comparing this August/12 to the last 15 Augusts).

I am not "freaking out". I've got nothing to freak out about. Just stating the facts.

Tom asked: "The question remains will buyers come out of the woodwork. " Same question many people asked at the top of the various worldwide real estate bubbles from the US to Eurozone - we all know how that played out....Just remember where we are: Vancouver is all-time high unaffordability (approx. 90%+ of pre-tax income required for SFH) w/ avg. price of SFH at around $1.14M for ALL of Greater Vancouver - these are WAY worse numbers than any real estate market in the world before their bubbles imploded....

Allow me to clarify. It takes a while for the Fall market to begin to roll, not literally taking longer to register.

That's why you compare (August - current year's) to (August - previous year's)... (September - current year's) to (September - previous year's).

It's called adjusting seasonally.

August has been a disaster. Thing's are picking up from your perspective because you are comparing to historically slow recent history.

Here's a hint - thing's can pick up and still be very slow compared to previous years.

I agree whether we will see whether the increase is substantial or not soon enough.

[rediculous]

LOL!

Hi HAM,

As it stands as of today I am ranked 152 out of all Greater Vancouver Realtors as per BCALink.

So that means if there are around 10,000 Realtors in REBGV, I'm in the top 1.5% of all Realtors in Greater Vancouver.

Within the last 2 months, I sold a house on the East Side and bought another house (and got a great deal!), specifically because I am optimistic about the future.

I did not sit on my money and wait because I thought the market was going to fall. I bought because now is a good time to buy because Sellers are concerned about the future.

Once Sellers are no longer concerned about the future, they will no longer be open to negotiating.

Like I said, I am not worried about the market and I put my money where my mouth is.

You?

Mike, you know after almost every post of yours I read I think...wow, that guy has his head firmly up his ass!

[HAM]

LOL!

Hi HAM,

As it stands as of today I am ranked 152 out of all Greater Vancouver Realtors as per BCALink.

So that means if there are around 10,000 Realtors in REBGV, I'm in the top 1.5% of all Realtors in Greater Vancouver.

Within the last 2 months, I sold a house on the East Side and bought another house (and got a great deal!), specifically because I am optimistic about the future.

I did not sit on my money and wait because I thought the market was going to fall. I bought because now is a good time to buy because Sellers are concerned about the future.

Once Sellers are no longer concerned about the future, they will no longer be open to negotiating.

Like I said, I am not worried about the market and I put my money where my mouth is.

You?

I ain't buying. The deal you got is not going to be seen as a deal in about 3 months. What am I buying? TSX! It's doing better than real estate right now. Im up only 20% on my REITs this year and it pays me 5% + dividends. You can pay your property taxes.

[jesse1]

It takes a while for the Fall market to begin to roll, not literally taking longer to register.

OK then, let's find some "comparables" and see how well thinktom has remembered what actually happened. I looked at each year's August sales and looked at the % change of sales in that year's September through November for the past 13 years, then binned them in occurrences and stacked them in a histogram. You get the picture:

histogramfallsales.jpg (38.21 KiB) Viewed 1209 times

Compared to August, the months of September, October, and November have had
Worse < -5%
September 5/13
October 6/13
November 7/13
Total 18/39 .46
About the same -5%-5%
September 7/13
October 2/13
November 5/13
Total 14/39 .36
Better > 5%
September 1/13
October 5/13
November 1/13
Total 7/39 .18

In other words only 18% of the fall months in the past 13 years have been "better" than the previous August's numbers. 46% are "worse", and 36% are "about the same".
If you're looking for a sales trend to lead to increased sales in the fall, simply using August as a gauge, it's not looking so good. Further, though I didn't display the numbers, if you are predicting at least one month in [Sep..Nov] with sales at least 5% better than August, you would be right 5/13 times. Of course I might add that [the year that shall not be mentioned] featured September being about the same as August, but October and [the month that shall not be mentioned in [the year that shall not be mentioned]] saw sales "worse", or not to put too fine a point on it, falling off a cliff.

We can finally look at average monthly sales change of September through November from August to see how persistent supposed fall strength is.

histogramfallsalesavg.jpg (30.44 KiB) Viewed 1214 times

And that, sirs, is how to spend a Friday night. (drops mic)

[thirdlittlepig]

September's numbers will be far more telling imo. We've noticed the mortgage rule changes having an effect on purchasing power. Lets face it. The Gov't ( and others ) have wanted the market to slow. Well, here ya' go.

Cant wait for the newspaper headlines tomorrow.

ANd yet, sales have picked up "dramatically" in the okanagan. Same mortgage rules, same government, same rock bottom interest rates. The main difference that I can see (since the economy is not on fire) is that our prices have been "softening" for quite some time and so we are in a different phase of the correction. Since prices are somewhat more reasonable (still plenty of air to come out of the market IMO), some are deciding to jump in probably due to low interest rates

[thirdlittlepig]

According to our real estate board report it's because the province is making some kind of economic recovery, which I don't see around here.

[jesse1]

According to our real estate board report it's because the province is making some kind of economic recovery

I had heard that Teck-Cominco was hiring recently and offered sizable signing bonuses to the union, maybe that has spurred something. How's the for-sale supply compared to sales doing up in Kelowna?

[vanpro]

tom clarified by saying:

"Allow me to clarify. It takes a while for the Fall market to begin to roll, not literally taking longer to register."

Well, it better turn around fast, because 1st week of Sept./12 was total DISASTER - sell/list at only 1/3 of 10 yr. avg., SALES PLUNGING EVEN LOWER THAN BAD AUG/12, LISTINGS PILING ON HEADING FOR OVER 12 MOI....THE US WENT INTO HYPER-CRASH MODE WHEN MOI SURPASSED 9 TO 10 LEVEL....

See data posted by your realtor colleague Paul Boenisch:

http://vancouverpeak.com/groups/data-ho ... #post-2576

[thirdlittlepig]

According to our real estate board report it's because the province is making some kind of economic recovery

I had heard that Teck-Cominco was hiring recently and offered sizable signing bonuses to the union, maybe that has spurred something. How's the for-sale supply compared to sales doing up in Kelowna?

Overall, about 12 MOI. In residential closer to 10-11 MOI. Housing starts are way down. Plenty of supply, new listiings.

[semven]

According to our real estate board report it's because the province is making some kind of economic recovery

I had heard that Teck-Cominco was hiring recently and offered sizable signing bonuses to the union, maybe that has spurred something. How's the for-sale supply compared to sales doing up in Kelowna?

WTF?

People commuting to Trail from Kelowna? Do they have a Park&Ride at Sun Peaks as well?

[timber2012]

Semven,

I, For one, can't wait for your man crush of Taipan to end.

Its boring.

It's interesting though... How those from the circle jerk club focus on personal attacks rather than discussing real estate now that the market doesn't look so great.

My question is, "where are the Chinese?". Remember those that you (tdma, semven, etc) were bending over and spreading as fast you could for. Why aren't they bidding up our city with no land anymore? LOL

[jesse1]

People commuting to Trail from Kelowna

No, I'm saying that economic activity would pick up a tad because of it -- some purchases would be worth the drive to Kelowna.