REBGV Area Officially in Bear Mode

Well it is mid May and the real estate market is supposed to be sizzling with sales and what is that sound I hear at your local open house. . . . .




. . . . . . .




- - - crickets chirping - - - -




. . . . . . .




In the formerly red hot Vancouver housing market, the inventory of homes for sale is piling up like empty pizza boxes at a teenage boy's birthday party. The rich immigrants and Albertans are not buying them all, locals can't afford them and the wannabe sellers are having to reduce their prices.

It only took a few months longer than the outlying FVREB area but the inventory of resale homes officially hit 26 weeks or 6 months of inventory this past week (as per Paul B's numbers) and that officially puts the Vancouver housing market into bear mode. Look for further price declines and listen for the cry of the wailing speculator - which sounds a lot like crickets chirping at an open house except louder.



The supply-demand relationships at work here should make price declines a virtual certainty through the summer, fall, and winter of 2008 based on seasonal real estate inventory patterns.

Of course if the seasonal pattern doesn't hold this year we could see a different result.