FVREB May 2008

The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board released their monthly statistic package to the public and here are the highlights.

Listings are up - - WAY UP. 33% higher than last year.

Sales are down - - WAY DOWN. 25% lower than last year.

Consequently the Months of Inventory is high for this time of year at 7 MOI.

Note regarding active listings - the FVREB decided to change the way they calculate active listings to a more accurate method but it limits our ability to compare year over year changes to inventory. Using the previous method, inventory would have been approximately 12,400 for an increase of 47% YOY and a MOI of 7.8.

Median Prices were up for detached (1.4%) and down for townhouses (-1.3%) and apartments (-2.2%). Low quality is the first to suffer during a real estate downturn like we are entering right now. The lower quality areas, structures, and housing types go down first and most.

We are well on our way to having negative Year over Year price changes with current annual appreciation for the House Price Index coming in at a lowly 4.5%. I fully expect that number to be negative by fall. The House Price Index in some lower quality areas is already in negative YOY% territory - see the press release for more details.

The price change model using months of inventory to predict future price movements is working well with a predicted MOM% price decline for the next few months on average.