Thursday, June 16, 2011

Who is buying homes in Vancouver

From yattermatters:
Each month the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board asks Vancouver Realtors® to respond to a survey. The survey is restricted to members who have made at least one sale in the preceding 30-day period.

Questions asked:
How would you best describe your most recent buyer(s)?
  • First Time Buyers
  • Moving from one property to a similar property
  • Moving from a condo to a townhouse
  • Moving from a condo OR townhouse to a detached
  • Moving from a townhouse OR detached to a condo
  • Moving from a detached house to a townhouse
  • Moving from a detached house to a condo
  • Moving into a retirement home
  • Local/Domestic investor
  • Foreign Investor
How did the buyer(s) finance their purchase?
  • All cash
  • Conventional mortgage (25% or more downpayment)
  • High ratio mortgage (less than 25% downpayment)
Describe the buyer(s)
  • Single male
  • Single female
  • Young couple with no children
  • Family with children
  • Empty nesters
  • Retired
  • Other
Where did the buyer(s) move from?
  • Already lived in the same community
  • Moved within the REBGV area
  • Moved from the Fraser Valley Board area
  • Moved from an area of BC outside the Lower Mainland
  • Moved from outside BC, but still within Canada
  • Moved from outside Canada
In your market area, are you seeing:
  • More traffic at open houses?
  • Deals collapsing due to financing?
  • More multiple offers?
Check out Larry's blog for the data. We should remember that this is a survey so is prone to the usual survey errors, along with potential for uneven distribution of respondents to the actual buyer distribution -- think the 80-20 rule, where 80% of transactions are done by 20% of the members. Nonetheless the data provide invaluable insight into who the buyers really are and I'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

2 comments:

zspread said...

The survey may be biased. I met couple of Chinese realtor, most of them are very busy and just deleted the survey mail.

jesse said...

Yes there is likely bias; nonetheless I can't see anything but locals buying the lion's share of properties and nobody is holding a gun to their heads to buy.