Saturday, October 1, 2011

WE DID IT!

MUCHO kudos to Larry again for being out with the numbers so fast.

That's a 5% drop in the average price from last month and a 10% drop in the SFH average from the high-water mark in May of this year.

Guess I got it right this time. I did say that May was going to be the high point or I was heading out of here and then I said 12 days ago that I thought we would have a significant drop in September.

Hey, I have to blow my own trumpet a little, being a RE bear has not been easy, seeing your well thought out arguments steam-rollered by abrupt changes in policy, lax lending or off-shore money.

I said the September numbers would be crucial. With more inventory coming onto the market rather than leaving, with the trajectory of the stock market being down rather than up and with China wobbling economically, we had very different dynamics from last year.

Average condo prices are down 6% from the high-water mark. After the huge run up of recent years, these numbers do not sound too dramatic, but they are a good start and remember statistics dictates that the same % move down shaves off more $$ than the same % move up added.

Just to give you some perspective, in October 2010 the SFH Average price from Larry's stats was $1,058,000. SO we need to lose another $ 46K to go negative YOY.

Fingers tightly crossed. We CAN do it.

Enjoy the weekend

4 comments:

  1. average price is unreliable as it depends on the sales mix. but it's still nice to see a drop

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  2. You are right anon.

    In fact, if anything. I would say Average over-estimates the over-all market in this case, since the HAM have still been very active in the high-priced areas.

    If so, we should see an equal drop in the median or benchmark.

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  3. Garth has zeroed in on Vancouver's drooping market

    http://www.greaterfool.ca/

    Mt favorite part:

    Of course, BC’s great HST flip-flop has something to do with that. Now that the province has announced it will kill the tax, which applies to new builds over half a million (for that, in VanCity, you get an ‘It’s My Potty” and an empty Best Buy box) construction has all but stopped as buyers wait for the levy to disappear. But that’s more than a year away. As you might imagine, it’s a disaster.

    However, we’re talkin’ Van west here, where shacks on so-so-lots get $2 million and particle board McMansions have commanded twice that. Does a horny rich, jet-lagged Asian laying down four mill really care about a few hundred thousand more in tax? Or was all that HAM hype of last Spring just that? Realtor-created, media-infused, jingoistic marketing crap?

    ReplyDelete