If you have been following the news lately or talking with your Realtor, you are probably under the impression that the Real Estate in the Lower Mainland is hot and feeling pressured to get into the market before it is 'too late'.
But is this an accurate assessment of the current market???
I have personally been tracking the number of sales (not the selling values, just the quantities of sales) of nine cities in the lower mainland since September of 2008 and plotting the number of sales for each city and posting to my website. These graphs clearly show that we are not out of the woods yet. The market generally peaked during the sumer of 2009 and has declined ever since to levels that are close to those of Dec 2008 when the market had crashed. It will remain to be seen if the market starts a general uptrend in February/March 2010 (markets typically have slow December & January periods)
Of specific interest is the ratio of active listings (yellow) to the number of sales for the previous months (blue) that is shown on the last page. This allows a very quick indication of whether the particular city represents a buyers market or a sellers market. Other than in West Vancouver where there generally are few condos listed at any one point in time, the other cities have constitantly shown this segment of the marketplace to be a buyer's market (lots of listings and few sales). The single family homes are a bit harder to say as there generally is not as much of a spread between the listings and sales (except in Surrey where the availability always exceeds the demand by many times).
The purpose of this blog entry is to ask that you become an educated consumer and do not let yourself be led by the hype of the media or the Real Estate industry. The latter, of course, have a vested interest in keeping people interested in buying. They need to survive and can only do so if they sell, who can blame them. But do not let this hype pressure you into buying beyond your means or before you are ready.
There presently is lots of fish in the sea and you have options. Make sure you are aware of this and take advantage of these options.
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Well it does now appear that insanity has returned to the Lower Mainland Real Estate market.
Sales are up, prices are up, people are offering more than asking, people are going in without subjects.
Base on conversations with various Realtors and lending institutions, the current push is driven by fear; fear of the HST, fear of rising interest rates, fear of rising home prices.
It also appears that a large number of current buyers are those that are really pushing their finances to buy their first home. They are going in with very little down and buying more than they really can afford.
The problem with this frenzy is that it will leave many new buyers over leveraged when the rates are higher at the end of their first term. And if the market does not continue to climb, we will be in the same shape that the USA currently finds themselves in(mortgage is worth more than the value of the home).
Sometime it is just better to rent folks. Don't let yourself get trapped. Especially try to ensure you do not get into a multi-family apartment or townhouse that has not yet been rain screened and may represent huge special assessments for building envelope remediation. If you are already over extended, a large special assessment will ruin you life.
Please ensure you hire a detailed and thorough home inspector before buying into a condo. Someone who will take the time to do the job right, someone who looks at the building envelope and common mechanical for potential liability.
Someone like SENWI House Inspections.
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