JULY 2012 (compared with July 2011):
Vancouver Residential Unit Sales were down 18% (2,135 cf 2,614)
Vancouver Residential Sales Dollar Volume was down 28.4% ($1.43B cf $1.99B)
Vancouver Residential Average Price down 7.4% ($738K cf $797K)
BC Residential Average Price down 12.2%
- from ‘Home Sales Decline in Vancouver, but Surge in Rest of BC’, BCREA press release, 14 Aug 2012
“Some potential homebuyers in Vancouver are taking a breather over the summer months”
- Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist, in the press release cited above
Sales volume leads prices. We anticipate more price weakness ahead.
- vreaa
- chart from CREA, via Ben Rabidoux
So they’re calling a bottom in the Okanagan?
Big uptick in Trail/Rossland/Castelgar region sales due to Cominco hiring. That’s the only bright light I see.
They’re taking a breather because real estate is a sport right ? A sport where Vancouver takes the gold in the special Olympics.
I hate it how the media anthropomorphizes buyers in the abstract. It’s not like they’re a person or anything.
“I think physically and mentally, it’s pretty good (to get a break),”… “Probably more the mental side of things. You get to this point of the year and physically you can find a way to get yourself going. But I think mentally you’re in a high stress, high pressure situation, day in and day out. Just to have a day to not really think about [buying real estate] or being under the pressure that comes with being in the [market] — it’s nice just to get away from the game [of buying real estate] for a [month] or two.”
‘take a breather’
sometimes a couple will say that to each other before ‘breeding’ resumption
I think we need to start keeping a list of all these “Muirisms” . Stating “buyers taking a breather” may go down as the best of the pile in years to come. As the above poster stated, Muir thinks buying real estate is some sport, just like Rennie thinks its like trading baseball cards. These clowns forget that baseball cards, though some are valuable, had their peak and then a huge valley. They also don’t understand reality either.
Agreed, chipshot. How about this jargon:
- Market “hiccup”
- “Cooling” market
- “Hard” asset
- Equity “ladder”
To name a few. I would add “investment”… total misuse of the term.
On the flip side, these concepts are completely foreign to the RE crowd:
- “Value”
- “Earnings”
- “Opportunity cost”
- “Greed”
The biggest joke in our context, though not always obvious is: “buyer’s market”
I like “soft landing” the best…
By “greed” I mean they don’t recognize it.
Van RE market has reached a “permanently high plateau”.
read up on ‘though terminating cliches’ like “bitter basement dwellers” etc.
hey where is rusty mcfuckface these days?
recent nf ferrari fun … http://tinyurl.com/9lkyxtp … nothing quite says it’s different here better than shifting your timezone 1/2 hr
WHy don’t they just tell it like it is. The market is tanking. Period.
Buyers taking a breather? Yeah, as if it’s one buyer buying up all the real estate and needs a breather. Historically, sales don’t pick up in the fall.
some will see this period as the start of a long slide.
Some will see it as an opportunity to take advantage of a rare discount.
What it actually is we won’t know until some future date.
What many already see is that Spring 2011 was a missed opportunity to sell. Many are now discovering it certainly wasn’t the time to buy.
“What many already see is that Spring 2011 was a missed opportunity to sell”.
+1
This was market peak.
Market has been declining now for over a year.
F1: “some will see this period as the start of a long slide.”
Uh, I thought things would never go down in YVR.
“Some will see it as an opportunity to take advantage of a rare discount.”
If it’s a long slide, why buy now? There’s some time to go before the end of this particular rope makes itself felt.
“…and here I g-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o…”
Classic Johnny, E.G.! I’ll see your Cash… and raise you a Durante!
“What it actually is we won’t know until some future date.”
Deep stuff. Stick around.
formula1 -> Philosophizing aside, we all know that you think it’s “an opportunity to take advantage of a rare discount”.
http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2012/08/vancouver-third-most-liveable-city-in-the-world-2012/
We deeeed it.
I like the “soft landing” one too. As one housing analyst said on BNN awhile back, “please show me any market boom in history that has had a soft landing, there isn’t one, cause it’s never happened “. It’s the most BS term ever used. Same with “the markets going to flat line”. Good luck with that.
‘Breather’ quote added to “It’s Only A Flesh Wound” collection.
Vreaa, I think you will like this one, from southseacompany@VCI.
“Number of young people leaving B.C. soars – likely reasons include slow economy, pricey housing”
http://www.theprovince.com/business/Number+young+people+leaving+soars+likely+reasons+include+slow+economy+pricey+housing/7096450/story.html
Very consistent with what you have been saying for the past few years. I believe Jesse also focuses on interprovincial migration as an important indicator.
being in this demographic i can attest to the veracity of this article – lots of my born-in-BC 24-30 somethings have already left or are about to leave. it’s ok, we can just replace them with the princelings of the communist party.
Maybe the potential buyers are just feeling a bit lonely…
http://www.vancouverfoundation.ca/documents/Van-Fdn-Consequences-of-loneliness.pdf
I think the correct technical terminology is “exhaustion gap up” in the making (as indicated by a complete lack of buyers currently) – eventually leading to higher tranaction volumes at prices lower than where they were roughly two years ago. This would be just the start of a significant and steady downtrend with a high probability of a gap down over the next few years when prices reach levels that occured 5 years ago. Not like this is new to anyone here though.
http://www.theprovince.com/business/mortgages/smaller+down+payments+lead+better+mortgage+rates/6550872/story.html
Recipe for disaster.
Well, livable or not it looks like people are now packing up and ditching YVR in numbers that even the MSM RE pumpers can no longer ignore:
http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/392560–thousands-of-people-leaving-bc-for-other-provinces