There were 330 new listings today and 219 sales, for a sell/list of 66.36%. I thought the listing number would be higher after a 4 day long weekend. Of the sales 41, or 18.72%, went over list. 14 of those were on the Westside. 3 were in East Van, 1 was in Port Coquitlam and 2 in Pitt Meadows. There were 7 in North Van, 1 in New West, 2 in Maple Ridge, 2 in Coquitlam, 5 in Burnaby, and 4 in the Fraser Valley.
Average list price of the sales was $572,383; average sales price was $568,080, a difference of $4,304, meaning the average sale went for 1.20% under list price. 24 properties went for list price. One property went for 10%($48,000) under list while the highest over list was 20% ($86,500) over.
There were 15 million dollar plus properties sold, with 4 over $2 million. Average days on market to sale was 36.
There were81 price changes, of which 10, or 12.35%, were increases. The average original list price of price changes was $622,075; the average new price was $607,394, a difference of $14,682, meaning the average price change was -1.81%.
Inventory in my target area rose today to 10,538, while over 90s also rose, to 1,876, a percentage rise to 17.8%.
There were 67 expiries today.
.67% of all active listings in my target area had their prices reduced today. The 14 day rolling sell/list was 66.05%
The Best Real Estate Anywhere! 
“I thought the listing number would be higher after a 4 day long weekend”
it is, when you compare it with last year. In 2006, The numbers after 4 day long weekend were 305(+8.20%) and 239 (-8.37%) and inventory rose by 3 as against 44 this year.
Lower listing numbers all around at this time last year, though, right? The week previous and the Tuesday after the long weekend were almost 200 listings less than this year. Last April was a very different market. Lots of days with 100%+ sell/lists.
This year, with the inventory run up I would have expected higher numbers. We may be 8% higher in listings and 8% lower in sales, but that’s an improvement compared to some numbers we’ve seen recently, no?
If there is some manual data entry component it could be the MLS people have a limit to how many they can reasonably process in a day?
Jesse,
I was told that is what is happening. They are extremely backed up.
Set a daily maximum number of listings with remainder set aside to fill low listing days and amazingly you have a stable lsiting change day to day. Who really runs the show at MLS?
There is no other source of market information available other than MLS or is there? I feel safer selling buying using a do it yourself type business like Comfree.com. Voids the smoke and mirrors with my hard earned money…
there you go. people with lots of power and tons of vested interest. but then whoever said that they can be manipulating.
Vancouver West and North Vancouver continue to be hot markets, according to the overlists. Interestingly, West Vancouver isn’t.
I believe the stats for March showed a 0% change from March 2006.
Great shot of the North Shore!
I’m not sure what is happening, but as Jesse mentioned, there seems to be some delays. Last week I was looking at a house and the date of the listing (I assume that would be the date that is on the form that the realtor filled out) was 5-6 days before it appeared on MLXchange (realtor’s system). The realtor assured me that he submitted the listing the day he wrote it up. Anyhow, the house sold 12% over list 🙂 Market is definately still hot.
Rob,
thanks. Good work, the numbers are the backbone of your blog!
When do you think we’ll hit 11k ?before or after mid-April? How about 12k?
Yes, there might be a backlog at MLS. Apart from the conspiracy theories about the realtors’ association (which are often right IMO) this means that Rob’s number could be considered as a lower estimate of the real supply growth. Caveat Emptor!
A sign of listings to come? We were taking some items to the thrift store in our area. The Salvation Army was not accepting donations as they were fully loaded. We went to a hospital thrift store, they were not accepting donations either as they were fully loaded up. Finally, we dropped our items at a third place whose back room was close to being fully loaded.
Are people spring cleaning to list their house for sale? Your guess is as good as mine. MLS is seems to be overloaded entering listings lately too, we have seen homes up for sale for a week in our area and are still not posted on MLS.
millionpitfall: I am looking at Westside house tonight. I was advised by my realtor about the listing .Its not on the MLS after 3 days. I think the ….25 point raise in rates may be a sign for some to sell.
Jim: when you say it doesn’t appear on MLS, are you referring to the public system? (mls.ca)? Typically when the listing is on the realtor system (mlxchange-based), it will propagate in a few days to mls.ca. This is more the reason to use a qualified REALTOR(tm) to help you find opportunities in the market.
This is the case in a hot market of course, but in a cool market, everything sits, and it is little value to get a listing hot off the press.
“Caveat Emptor!”
I think you mean Caveat Lector
Caveat Emptor – Let the Buyer Beware
Caveat Lector – Let the Reader Beware
He could have meant either…
A beautiful interactive tool from today’s NYtimes
Listings are backing up these days in the MLS department. 3 days is a common amount of time between submitting the listing and seeing it on the system. That has been going on for a few weeks now. We’ve also seen that happen in the past during hot markets.
Did MLS reach capacity for listings Tuesday, from a data entry point of view? There have been higher listing days in the past, but a total of 600 transactions in a day (sales & listings) seems about capacity.
I think that some people have to take a step back and imagine exactly how listings and sales get entered into the system. Paid staff (i.e., regular working stiffs) enter the stuff, day after day, year after year. They aren’t Realtors. When you throw out the conspiracy theory BS some of it sticks to them (they’d have to be involved). My offer still stands: if you see something concrete and funny about an MLS listing, (price reduced after sale, for example), let me know, with details. Manipulating the numbers is wrong, and I believe its a contravention of our code of ethics. I won’t stand for it and will address any instance of it that can be substantiated. I may not solve the problem (if one actually exists) but I will be open about dealing with it, so at the very least we’ll all learn something.
Chip:
West Vancouver is a great value now in SFH’s ,versus the Westside. I am sure its demographics as a lot of upper middle classers bought there in the 70’s, and are now downsizing. Or it could be the influx of multicultualism to a historicallyy waspy neighbourhood? I would pay a premium for Westside versus Westvan.
To the conspiracy theorists:
My realtor has been sending me listings for months and months now, and I have yet to notice a single instance of fudged numbers after the listing is closed. As Rob says, for the conspiracy theory to hold water, it means that the people at the board office who enter the information in the listings would have to be in on the conspiracy. From my end, I haven’t seen anything to support that.
RE Conspiracy theories: there is not much point in discussing things that are hard to verify.
I did not mean to throw dirt on anyone, I just meant to point out that I would fully expect the “sellers category association” to massage figures in the best interest of their category. That’s what these organizations do.
I do not think they would go as far as fabricating numbers. Basically I think that the numbers are a good approximation of reality but must be taken with a grain of salt when large upswings are in the making: slowing down the transmission of unfavorable information can make a lot of difference for some people.
Enough for conspiracy theories! It’s quite a depressing topic, not much enjoyavnle! I don’t think even the realtors’ association will be able to do much when the big wave hits Vancouver….I am only sorry for those young buyers who did not realize the wave was hitting because of the slow transimission of information.
Jim:
The hot North Van versus cold West Van dynamic is interesting considering what’s going on with schools in the two districts.
North Van is trying to close schools as enrollment falls while my son’s school in West Van has hundreds of kids on the waiting list.
It would suggest that families aren’t a factor for the stagnation in West Van or rising prices in North Van.
So what is?
chip:
Another explanation is compression. In other words how can the premium historically paid for West Van versus North Van be justified? It was justified previously by larger lots and higher quality housing stock, better community planning, and some self rightousness on the part of West Vanners-not any more. And I will not be so racist as to comment on the new “nick name” for the British Properties.
Breaking news from CNN:
“Fed policymakers agreed more rate increases might be needed to curb inflation, according to March meeting minutes.”
But then what can they do.
First time:
I’m not sure where you’re going with this. Are you proving the guy at RBC wrong?
The fed can do plenty, but they often don’t do what they say, which is why deciphering what they say is akin to kremlinology.
The US economy is slowing. That mitigates against interest rate increases. The US dollar is losing value. That points toward rate increases. Sub-prime meltdown and housing market woes could damage the US economy even more. That points to no increase. The list goes on. The signals are contradictory.
The point isn’t that rates will go down. The point is that some smart guys who make their livings in that market have said they think rates will edge down in the next 18 months.
Take it with a grain of salt, by all means.
Or, not.
But if you could simply ask the Fed what they planned to do, and get a straight answer, why would a short term interest options market even exist? The future would be known, right? And yet that market does exist, in part because the Fed can be a surprising body that sends mixed messages (remember Bernanke’s first couple of weeks?)
“I’m not sure where you’re going with this. Are you proving the guy at RBC wrong?”
All I said is that dont bring a paid shill’s report to prove a point that suits your convenience. Means nothing. Something similar to your trenches report, MOI BS and misreading Sauder data. You can perhaps get more respect by sticking to numbers. Leave the analysis to someone who can do them better.
In all honesty, I have to agree with first_time_buyer on this one.
It seems somewhat controdictory when one little piece of information pointing to rate cuts makes your page, but when the Fed (who is actually in control of interest rates) says otherwise, you simply dismiss it.
I love the numbers Rob but such comments clearly indicative of your non-objective view of things.
Thanks again for the numbers.
Noname
But mortgage rates just went up across the board yesterday in Canada? And my personal banker says mortgage rates are heading up. I don’t care predictions about fed moves are -MORTGAGE rates are heading up.
Here’s the funny thing, 1st time. You didn’t “just” say “dont bring a paid shill’s report to prove a point that suits your convenience”. You needed three comments over two posts to get de-coded. We both know you want to prove some sort of point. It would be great if you could get to this point sooner next time.
Your first quote from Bernanke proved the statement that some people think inflation is disappearing as a threat. Since then you’ve pointed to people who disagree with a guy who was quoted. News flash: there are lots of disagreements in the world. The existence of the disagreement doesn’t prove one side right and the other wrong.
The guys quoted aren’t paid shills. You’re just calling them shills because you don’t like what they say. You’re attacking them personally because you can’t refute what they’re saying with any real substance.
I’m not proving any point, period. I’m just pointing out that some guys predict falling mortgage rates. I’m sourcing the quotes and doing it right out in the open. There’s no shell game going on. It was a slow Easter weekend and I had that paper lying around by the computer.
I’m not sure what you mean by “proves a point that suits [my] convenience”. I’ll guess that you think that I’ll trick someone into doing something that will somehow generate a profit for me. I’m not exactly sure how that would work, but I’m sure its clear to you. Maybe I’ll get them to hold off renewing their mortgages until rates go up, and then I’ll get a kickback from the mortgage industry, or maybe I’ll trick them into thinking rates are going down and so they’ll buy some real estate off me, or something. Maybe my “spin” will just keep the bubble inflated. Who knows? I will challenge you, however, to explain to everyone how this news article furthers my “agenda”, and how I benefit from it by putting on my blog when the National Post has already published it in hard form and put it on the web.
noname:
I’m not dismissing what the Fed says. I am saying that they are hard to decode at the best of times. Further, Fed rates do not equal mortgage rates (see Jim’s comment above). When 1st time first cited Bernanke’s words on inflation I accepted them, but pointed out that they validated the statement that some people think inflation is becoming less of a threat (RBC guy says inflation fears are diminishing, Bernanke says “despite some feelings that inflation isn’t a threat anymore, I think it still is”).
You make a mistake when you decide that my selection of news clips portrays my position on the RE market (or the future of mortgage rates) more accurately than I do. I don’t know where rates are going. I have three 5 year terms now and an open. If I thought rates were dropping, why would I have 5 year closed terms?
AP
Stocks Retreat on Fed Meeting Minutes
Wednesday April 11, 5:44 pm ET
By Madlen Read, AP Business Writer
Wall Street Pulls Back After Fed Raises Specter of Rate Hike and Gasoline Prices Rise
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street stumbled Wednesday, pulling the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 90 points after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s most recent meeting indicated the central bank is not ruling out an interest rate hike to curb inflation.
The minutes, coupled with a jump in gasoline prices, heightened investor worries about inflation and drove an already sagging stock market even lower. Investors are growing increasingly anxious that rates may rise, which could limit corporate profits and consumer spending and further weaken the housing market by making mortgages more expensive.
New Web Giant Launches Portal Site – Plans on Dominating Web-based Real Estate Sector
04/01/2007
Chicago, IL based Profertee Realty Group, inc launches its much anticipated real estate portal site (www.profertee.com) Monday morning. Partnering with Melville, NY based American Home Mortgage(NYSE: AHM) and Home Buyers Marketing inc, Profertee’s site is boasting access to over 3.6 million real estate listings nation wide, as well as various premium new construction developments located in Orlando, Las Vegas, and Chicago, just to name a few. Profertee’s mission is to offer a free, user-friendly real estate shopping experience, while also providing additional value-added features such as investment groups, home-valuation tools through Zillo integration, useful real estate investing strategies, and free mortgage quotes through American Home’s retail channels. “We are truly a one-stop-shop”, says Profertee CEO Rhoniel Daguro. “The site has everything a user could want, but we really wanted to feature the premier new construction developments. That is something that no one is really organizing online, and we’ve taken things one step further by forming buyers into investment groups, giving them access to considerable savings at the various developments.”
Profertee also provides local one-on-one services through the thousands of realtors approved with Home Buyers Marketing, inc. Users can create an account on http://www.profertee.com to search over 3.6 million listings for a home anywhere in the US and still deal with a local partner agent once they are closer to buying. It is in this way that Profertee is providing the best of both worlds: the power of the internet + traditional local realtor partners. Navigate to http://www.profertee.com today and test drive their site. Also stay tuned for our follow up segment on Profertee in June.
Profertee – Prosperity in Property: Exclusive New Developer Condos http://www.profertee.com
Sounds cool…. and i like the design, and how i can save listings to my “notebook”.
🙂
Joe
most recent meeting indicated the central bank is not ruling out an interest rate hike to curb inflation.
this is the absolute last thing the housing market needs…. a rate hike on top of rising energy costs
nothing like kicking somebody when they are down……