Ubergeek Post Update - Price Changes and Months of Inventory in GVREB

Here is a quick update on the work mohican and I did in the spring around refining mohican's work tracking price changes and months of inventory. Remember that the best fit was to track half-over-half (i.e. 6 months over 6 months) price changes to a three month moving average of months of inventory (total active listings at the end of the month divided by the sales in that month).

Here is mohican's famous scatter plot for half-over-half versus 3 month moving average MOI:



Remarkably the correlation is disturbingly accurate into the downturn. Looking forward we can see how well the model has "predicted" the next month's price movements.



By happenstance we can see the model was consistently predicting larger price drops than actually occurred, except last month when it was bang on. In any case, the model predicts the November benchmark to be 14.1% below that of May of this year, or about $611,000. Likely a bit aggressive, but there it is. I am expecting the November benchmark to come in around $650,000 with what looks like a long way to go in the southern direction.

Thanks Jesse for the update.

I wanted to weigh in here on this model because at the time when we put it together we didn't know how well it would help us predict price drops. It apparently worked exceptionally well and put us ahead of the curve when looking at the size of the potential price drops. I see no reason to expect a change now. More price drops to come.

Vancouver CMA CMHC Data

It has been awhile since I updated the CMHC statistics. Here you go.



This chart shows the number of units under construction (blue) from 1948 through 2008. It also shows the last 12 months of housing starts (red) and the last 12 months of completions (yellow).

With the current slowdown in the local real estate market you would think that developers would accelerate completions and hold back on starts but it turns out the opposite has been true of the past six months. I can understand not rushing to push new units into this market but why start so many?

The number of housing units under construction is at all time record highs and there is a virtual tsunami of housing units close to hitting the market. This will flood the supply situation even further than now and combined with the abysmally low sales levels we are looking at large and sustained real estate price decreases for quite some time.

26% Price Drop in 6 Months

I received an email from a regular reader that informed me of a new home that has dropped in price 26% from peak pricing only six months ago. I looked into this alleged price drop and it checked out. Here is a link:

http://www.foresttrailsatgarrison.com/

This is a development of 40 or so smaller townhomes in the eastern Fraser Valley - Chilliwack. The asking price for these townhomes in May 2008 was $269,900 and today they are $199,900 with an additional offer of special financing for the first 3 years. It appears the developer is getting eager and wants to quickly unload the rest of this project. I am certain there is a fair bit of margin for the developer to work with here but I suspect the bonuses for those working at the developer won't be gigantic this year.

This is the biggest recorded asking price drop that I have seen so far. It is no surprise that we are seeing the biggest and fastest price drops in the farther reaches of the Fraser Valley. This is exactly what happened in the other North American bubble markets only it is happening here faster! In fact, this is quickly approaching affordable levels, albeit in Chilliwack. But with $10,000 down and a mortgage / strata / tax payment of $1300 / month it is comparable to rent. Very accessible for a first time homebuyer with stable employment, you just better not have to commute further than Abbotsford!

Post your anecdotes of price drops here with the developer's website or MLS Listing number.

Likely Outcome - Price Drops to continue to 2011/2012

In the efforts to visually represent a likely outcome for local housing prices I put together the chart (above - click to enlarge). I think it is likely that the benchmark detached house in Greater Vancouver will fall no less that 40% in value from the April / May 2008 peak price. This is a likely trajectory of the fall given the current and expected economic climate. I fully expect the majority of the price correction will take place over the first 24 months so we will see prices 30% lower by the time we are just about experiencing the hangover of hosting the Winter Olympics.

Of course nobody knows for certain how large this correction will be or how fast but I think based on current data this would seem a probable outcome.

It will be a good day when the average family can afford a basic home and condos are affordable for first time buyers.

Greater Vancouver House prices shoud be no more than $500k for a decent house in a decent neighbourhood and Fraser Valley houses $350k for the same. Greater Vancouver one bedroom condos should fall to $150k and Fraser Valley $120k. By the end of this, it will as if the bubble never happened except for the shattered finances of the speculators, and highly leveraged peak buyers.

Money Hole: Pros and Cons

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

"Boring" Canada's Financial Tips for the World

Ottawa, November 13, 2008

From Finance Canada.

The following guest column by the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, appeared in today’s Financial Times. In it, Minister Flaherty outlines Canada’s five-point plan to restore stability to the international financial system.

"The financial crisis that began 14 months ago in the US has intensified and spread around the world, threatening to roll back economic progress that has been made over the past two decades. Governments have been responding in a co-ordinated fashion and will continue this work in the lead-up to the summit of the Group of 20 leading economies.

"Few countries are as dependent on trade or as integrated into the global financial system as Canada. Yet our financial sector continues to weather the turbulence better than many other countries. This did not happen by chance. Canadians by nature are prudent and our financial system has been characterised as unexciting. Canada’s regulatory regime ensures that stability and efficiency are balanced. As a result, Canadian taxpayers have not had their money put at risk in response to this crisis. If Canada’s financial system is boring, perhaps the world needs to be more like Canada.

"Before we examine grand designs for global regulatory regimes, we need to recognise that good regulation begins at home. Effective national regulatory regimes could have prevented this crisis and must be our first line of defence against any future one. We all need to draw lessons from those systems that worked well and apply them to our national regulatory regimes.

"First, we need to regulate all pools of capital that rely on leverage. The crisis has demonstrated the devastating impact that unregulated entities can have. Transparency requirements must be the price of admission to global markets. Different financial services may have different regulatory requirements, but we need to bring them all under a regulatory umbrella.

"Second, capital and liquidity buffers need to be large enough to handle big shocks. Moreover, regulators must restrain overall use of leverage. Some have criticised high Canadian capital requirements for banks as being too conservative. But the strong balance sheets of Canada’s banks through this period speak for themselves.

"Third, it is not enough for regulation to look at individual institutions. It needs to look at the system as a whole. Risks that may appear sensible in isolation can be unsustainable from a systemic perspective. This systemic vantage point must be used to mitigate any tendency to underestimate risk when times are good. This requires co-ordination across the government, central bank and regulatory agencies.

"Fourth, we need to make market infrastructure more transparent and resilient. Non-transparent over-the-counter trades and naked short-selling reduced the stability of the system.

"This crisis has demonstrated that even countries with strong financial systems can feel the effects of inadequate regulatory regimes elsewhere.　Countries may hesitate to impose new requirements on their own institutions if these measures will create a competitive disadvantage. This points to the importance of the fifth step: strengthening international co-ordination, review and surveillance to create a better second line of defence. Canada was a pioneer of the joint International Monetary Fund-World Bank financial sector assessment program. This independent review of domestic financial systems should be mandatory and public. We need to strengthen the role of international colleges of supervisors to ensure better understanding of systemic risks and to co-ordinate national actions. We need IMF surveillance with teeth. Countries must live up to their responsibilities to support global financial stability and growth. Nowhere is this more important than in correcting global imbalances through appropriate exchange rate and macroeconomic policies to support growth.

"The process of how we make decisions is equally important. In two decades of unprecedented growth, we have seen the emergence of dynamic new economic players that must be full participants at the global table. Canada took one of the largest share cuts of any country in the recent IMF reform exercise to ensure that emerging economies are better represented. This broader range of voices must be heard in other venues such as the Financial Stability Forum.
"Together, these reforms must ensure that incentives are aligned to support stability and that resilience is built into the financial system.

"The open market system did not fail in this crisis. However, some forgot Adam Smith’s maxim that the invisible hand needs to be supported by an appropriate legal and regulatory framework. We need to work together to strengthen those frameworks, and that work must begin at home."

Canadian Banking - Up for Discussion

Video here. http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=926680705

TORONTO, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Canadian banks should be able to get through the financial crisis without relying on the kind of government aid that is being deployed to financial institutions in other countries, Toronto-Dominion Bank's top executive said on Wednesday. While the Canadian government just announced an increase in the size of its bank mortgage buyback program -- boosting the program to C$75 billion from C$25 billion -- the federal government is actually making money on that program, TD Bank President and Chief Executive Ed Clark said.

"This is a pretty good deal from the government's point of view," since it gets paid to buy mortgages from banks that a government agency has already guaranteed, he said. Canadian banks, with strong balance sheets and healthy mortgages on their books, are using the government buyback program to fund themselves at rates comparable with, or better than, what banks elsewhere in the world can get, he said. Clark was speaking at a financial conference in New York organized by Merrill Lynch.

"We would like to get through this crisis without government bailouts, there have been no bailouts of the Canadian banking system," Clark said. TD, which has grown substantially in the United States through acquisitions in recent years, does not have to make another U.S. purchase to fulfill its business objectives, he said. The bank acquired New Jersey-based Commerce Bancorp earlier this year, and privatized TD Banknorth in 2007.

"We can grow organically, if you take a look at the average bank in the U.S. and strip out acquisitions, it's not obvious that there's a lot of organic growth there," Clark said. But TD, Canada's second largest bank, would consider U.S. acqusitions if certain conditions were met -- that is, if a potential deal were in its existing East Coast footprint, if it were cheaper to buy than build out its branch network, and if it involved minimal asset risk.

"You're not going to see us suddenly move up the risk curve in this environment," Clark said. He also said it seems "inevitable" that a U.S. recession will spread to Canada, where the bank's loan book is more retail oriented. TD expects provisions for credit losses to rise in the next few years, but from a low base, Clark said.