Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Okanagan

Sorry Chad. I know it is outside of Vancouver.

Over-all for the whole OK- 455 sales and 9897 listings = 21 MOI

Actually a few more sales than July, but high MOI and the prices!

Here are the stats for the Central OK.

Look at page 9. Prices are flat compared to last year to down for all categories except apartments. As expected lots and bare land got hit hard as specumoney came off the bid.

It is a small sample and I always have trouble following all the stats in these packages, as the focus always seem to be total dollar volume of sales and not the HPI or prices. The North Okanagan and Shuswap look similar.

8 comments:

  1. BTW- I am impressed that Carney is tip-toeing up to 1% whoppie!

    The US is in such a mess from it's RE debacle that it cannot budge form 0.25%. Shameful really..capitalism gone wild.

    At least prime has inched up a little. Savers are now only losing 1% a year to inflation and he has room to swing his knife and slice all the way to 0.25% if it hits the fan.

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  2. It's interesting how well prices are holding in the Okanagan despite slow sales and high inventory. Median prices are actually up year over year!

    You have to wonder how this would translate to the Vancouver market.

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  3. How do you spell heavy?


    If those listing/sell ratios are correct, I would spell it ......


    HEAVY

    VERY HEAVY

    bobby

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  4. I know a couple people who are trying to sell in Kelowna. One has had a house on the market since April. She started at $430k. I looked yesterday and it's now listed at $345k :s This despite the fact that she had an offer at $375k and said NO! (oops!)
    Others I know haven't reduced their prices a dime, either because they would just break even at current listing price, or because they're convinced the fall will show a rebound.
    Interesting times in Kelowna...I go there about once a month for work and drive past the same for sale signs time and time again...I would say prices are holding up only because no one's buying ;p

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  5. yes. We are in an interesting market. Both sides are staring each other down. One day a buyer will cave in and pay asking, the next a seller will take a big discount.

    Of course the small sales numbers can skew the averages and medians very dramatically, and so if is hard to judge which way the market is trending.

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  6. You don't need to go that far to find other instances of Doh! I know a couple who tried to sell their Spectrum unit. They had an offer 10% under list in April, refused it, then had to drop their price at least that. Now it's off the market and renting at 3% cap.

    Doh!

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  7. And as we all know, it's the people who can afford to drop the price who will set the market. In my example above, the woman selling the house currently listed for $345k has no mortgage, she's owned it for about 40 years. She also has a whole lot of other retirement money socked away, more than she could possibly spend the rest of her life. So at some point, she's just going to say "screw it, I'm done!" and will take anything she can get for the house. This, of course, will be bad news for the rest of the market...but that's how a market goes down...and down...and down...

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  8. It is VERY strange how well prices are holding up. I was in the market during the Spring (sold our home, looked, but didn't buy) and I'm sure that our house would fetch about 25k less today than it did in April (sold for 425k).

    I also know of several homeowners that rejected offers that the would gladly take now, and there is ZERO interest at their current price.

    eg. We viewed a rental ($1800 per month) that was originally listed at 500k (bought for 500k two years ago). He turned down 3 offers between 430-440k. Might have got 450 if he had bargained. He eventually dropped all the ways down to 450k, but took it off the market last month. His neighbour listed at 410k a few weeks ago.

    Another house we considered purchasing was listed at 600k in the spring, and was the most reasonably priced house in the neighbourhood. We had it in our top 5, but opted not to put in an offer. It just sold for 441k.

    The other top 4 that we've been keeping an eye on have dropped asking prices as follows:

    659->639->609 (vacant)
    750->720->699->689 (couple divorced)
    675->650
    675 (no price drop)

    All 4 have been on the market for at least 150 days and we felt that they were priced comparably or better than similar offerings on the market (which is why they're on our shortlist).

    Are there enough buyers out there that one will eventually overpay for one of these homes, or are they destined to chase the market down until they can't afford to hold any longer?

    I would expect that 441k sale and others like it to drive down prices quickly, but when are those price drops reflected in the median/average?

    I am wondering if people aren't shopping for a house - they're shopping for a price. i.e. they are approved to spend 450k. Instead of buying a house that meets their needs for 350k, they spend 441k on a house that is much more than they needed/expected to get.

    If that's the case, then as long as the bank is handing out easy money, the average price won't really decline significantly (the OK needs a housing index). People will just be extending themselves to the max and buying nicer houses than they could have 6 months ago.

    Any other thoughts as to why the price numbers are holding up so well even when all the anecdotal evidence seems to show prices are cratering?

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