Listings rose during October and so did sales. Months of inventory declined slightly from 6.3 to 6.0 from September to October. I don't know where people get the money to buy homes at these prices but they do. Insanity.
Median prices were flat to negative during October with the average and median detached home prices showing declines. Average apartment prices and the house price index for apartments were also down month over month. All other price changes were flat or small increases. Many areas of the Fraser Valley are experiencing sizeable declines in prices.
The year over year price changes are declining in the Fraser Valley with the current annual appreciation for all housing types as measured by the HPI / House Price Index at 8%. This is continuing the downward slide in appreciation from the heady days of 2006 at 24% annual appreciation. If we are to learn lessons from other housing markets we would expect the annual appreciation to continue to slide into negative territory in the next 6 months. The average time from peak YOY% appreciation to 0% is approximately 18 to 24 months - that is in the next couple of months.
The year over year price changes are declining in the Fraser Valley with the current annual appreciation for all housing types as measured by the HPI / House Price Index at 8%. This is continuing the downward slide in appreciation from the heady days of 2006 at 24% annual appreciation. If we are to learn lessons from other housing markets we would expect the annual appreciation to continue to slide into negative territory in the next 6 months. The average time from peak YOY% appreciation to 0% is approximately 18 to 24 months - that is in the next couple of months.
The continued highly negative correlation between months of inventory and quarterly price changes is witnessed here. As we maintain inventory levels above 6 months, we should expect falling prices as the market moves into buyers territory.
For interest sake I wanted to see if there was any evidence of housing type price compression in the Fraser Valley and it appears to be a mild phenomena as witnessed by the small changes in the number of median apartments it takes to buy the median detached house. The ratio has been falling as we would expect in a compressing market. This is typical in bubble markets when buyers move down the property ladder as more expensive housing types become unaffordable.
3 comments:
One thing I noticed for YOY price changes is that they seem to use the year to date median price instead of the monthly median this month compared with the monthly median a year previously.
I haven't decided whether this is the right way to go about it. It seems to me it will smooth out or slow the downslope.
I noticed this for the GVREB stats from last month. I haven't verified that the FVREB stats do the same thing.
Any thoughts on they methodology?
The YOY price changes I use in the graphs are from the House Price Index.
The YOY price changes that the real estate board quotes in the press releases are whatever they feel like quoting (averages, medians or indexes). They use whatever number makes the real estate market look the best.
I've been talking to some people that have been considering buying a house right across the border citing that prices are becoming significantly cheaper and with the CAD hitting 1.10 it's become worth it. They'd just buy a nexus pass to cross over when they need to.
I don't expect too many people to do this, but it's becoming an option
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