Fraser Valley Real Estate Now at 7 Months of Price Declines

Active Listings in the Fraser Valley real estate market fell by a normal seasonal amount from November to December as many hopeful real estate sellers pull their homes off the market during the dreary winter months hoping for better luck in the spring. Good luck with that. Active listings are at the highest year end level for which I have records which does not bode well for those trying to get top dollar for their listed properties in 2009. Click on a chart to enlarge it for a better view.


Sales were extremely low at well under half the monthly volume of the heyday years of not so long ago. 508 sales is very little. It amuses me how the Real Estate Board highlighted the fact that December sales were higher than November sales. Yes, I can do math too Kelvin - - 508 is bigger than 507. How this is relevant I do not know.

Months of inventory remains highly elevated and is an important indicator of a distressed real estate market at these levels. Look for further price declines throughout 2009.

The sell list ratio is extremely low which indicates that very few real estate wanna-be-sellers are turning into real estate sellers. Consequently, price pressure is highly negative as those who must sell are forced to lower prices to draw in potential buyers.

Median Prices are continuing to retreat.

The correlation of the supply/demand metric and price changes is continuing to be remarkably resilient as we have moved to the other end of the see saw. It is as if somebody flipped a switch in May 2008 and buyers stopped showing up.

Benchmark home prices, which are the best indicator of the actual change in property values have declined nearly 10% now and values are at the September 2006 level.

The story for 2009 will be more of the same. Bargain hunters will likely start seeing more and more value as desperate sellers try to move their properties. I fully expect that 2009 will be a flipper bloodbath as many of these wanna-be real estate moguls get smacked with month after month of carrying costs and are forced into the new reality of declining real estate values. If you need to sell a home in 2009 make sure you price it lower than everybody else unless you want to chase the market down.