Well, it is the end of July and the Vancouver area real estate market ain't so hot anymore. We've got over 20,000 homes listed for sale in the REBGV area, over 11,000 for sale in the FVREB area, and yet another 1,100 homes for sale in the CADREB (Upper Fraser Valley) area. This brings the grand total of listings to well over 32,500 and sales so far down the toilet that it's nearly unbelievable. This brings our total months of inventory for the entire region to over 9 months and we are at a listings per person ratio in excess of 1 listing for every 75 residents of the area. Population stats here: GVRD, FVRD.
This means that our current inventory levels are higher than the bubbliest of bubbly US markets and sales still have further to fall which is going to put even more pressure on prices. I fully expect Months of Inventory to be well above 10 by September / October and even higher in the wintertime. The pressure for price declines will be enormous as some sellers will need to sell and they'll have to cut their price dramatically in order to do so.
We've discussed price changes before and the relationship between price changes and the supply / demand function (Months of Inventory). Given that relationship, if April was the official top of the market for prices, July should prove to be the month that the market turned sharply negative in terms of price changes.
My personal speculation is that benchmark prices will likely be down 2.5% give or take 1%. What's your thoughts?
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