Here are the weekly statistics for the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver in the week of June 15th, 2008 – June 21st, 2008 for my market area of Vancouver East and Vancouver West.

Comparing the numbers week-to-week, we see a slight bump in sales (+3.3%) and a more significant drop in new listings (-11.5%) with a barely perceptible overall rise in active listings (+0.13%). Here are the details:

New Listings: 460 (-11.5%)
Avg List Price: $842,357 (-4.1%)
New Detached: 147 (-19.7%)
New Attached: 313 (-7.7%)

Sales: 186 (+3.3%)
Avg Sale List Price: $806,606 (+3.7%)
Avg Sale Sell Price: $778,947 (+3.7%)
Avg Difference: 3.55% (-0.02)
Avg DOM for Sale: 37.82 (+1.69 days)

Sell/List Ratio: 40.4% (+4.3)

Price Changes: 309 (-10.68%)
Avg New List Price: $820,746 (-8.14%)
Avg Old List Price: $856,291 (-7.36%)
Avg Difference: -4.33% (+0.75)
Avg DOM for Price Change: 44.95 (-3.71 days)

Active Listings: 5297 (+0.13%)

Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

It appears as though the city of Vancouver is a victim of it’s own success. In the late 80s, the city began promoting a policy of “Living First” to encourage people to move downtown. In that time, we’ve gone from a Downtown population of 40,000 to more than 90,000 with the incredible growth and popularity of Downtown condominiums. 

We are in danger, however, of our Downtown core losing it’s viability as a workplace. The business community has been raising the issue to City Hall for years, and we are currently at an all-time low for office vacancy in the Downtown core. 

With building spaces at a premium, and demand for condominiums at a high, developers looked at converting office space to residential. The city placed a moratorium on these conversions four years ago. However, with an estimated 6 million sq ft of office space required for the City, they feel that more needs to be done. 

The solution? Within an expanded new commercial district, planners are proposing that new office tower development be granted 20% – 40% more density. They also plan to encourage developers to build as high as possible without blocking the designated view corridors. 

The City is designating a new area termed the “metro core” (everything north of 16^th Ave from Clark to Arbutus). The City plans to encourage the development of office space in this region, although exactly how is not clear. 

What’s the effect on residential real estate in the Downtown core? There is already a demand for more office space downtown. These changes will result in more of that space being built and thus more jobs based Downtown.

With rising fuel prices, increasing environmental consciousness, as well as the attractive lifestyle of downtown living, many of these workers will want to live within walking or biking distance of their work and thus put greater demand on the limited supply of Downtown residential condos.

 Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

On June 10th, the Vancouver city council officially (and unanimously) passed the EcoDensity Charter. This unanimous vote took place despite the opposition by more than twenty local community groups.

 Most of what is contained in the charter has a long way to go before we see it put into affect. These include such actions as: new types of arterial mid-rise buildings, more options for rental secondary suites, and developing options for back-yard and laneway housing. While the city has indicated that they want to see these in principle, the details still need to be made clear.

 That being said, two items from the charter were put immediately into action. This included the rezoning policies for greener buildings, as well as “greener larger sites”. According to the EcoDensity website, this means that applications for rezoning buildings will have to meet a minimum LEED standard. Also, when applying rezoning for tracts of land of 2 acres or more, sustainability measures will be required.

 Our city is now committed, through the charter, to make environmental sustainability a primary goal in all city planning decisions while keeping in mind affordability and livability.

 Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

Here’s the weekly update of Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver statistics for the week of June 8th, 2008 – June 14th, 2008 in Vancouver East and Vancouver West. Comparing the numbers week-to-week, residential sales dropped as did new listings. Net result, though is another bump in active listings.

Here are the details:

New Listings: 513
Avg List Price: $876,970
New Detached: 176
New Attached: 337 

Sales: 180
Avg Sale List Price: $777,627
Avg Sale Sell Price: $750,831
Avg Difference: 3.57%
Avg DOM for Sale: 36.19

Sell/List Ratio: 35.1%

Price Changes: 342
Avg New List Price: $887,563
Avg Old List Price: $919,308
Avg Difference: -3.58%
Avg DOM for Price Change: 48.66

Active Listings: 5290

Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

On Tuesday, June 10th 2008 the Bank of Canada announced it’s decision to leave its target for the overnight lending rate at 3% and the bank lending rate at 3.25%. The Bank surprised most observers by leaving rates unchanged and cited concerns about rising inflation for this change in it’s policy (find the full press release here).

An article in the Globe and Mail (read the article here) today discussed the issue. Not only are mortgage interest rates expected to rise due to the shift in the Bank of Canada policy, but also because of the predicted rise in inflation. However, mortgage brokers interviewed in the article foresee only “modest” rises in the mortgage rates offered by banks to consumers.

CBC is reporting that on June 11th, 2008  banks are already making the move to raise interest rates (read the article here). Rates increased by as much as 0.5% for a posted five year rate.

Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

Ozzie Jurock (local real estate investment educator) recently wrote a piece featured in the Vancouver Sun (”Why I will always buy real estate“). It’s an interesting read, and worth considering in light of our “rebalancing” market.

You can read the article for yourself right here, but here are a couple of expercpts for you:

If you place a good portion of your assets into real estate today, you won’t have to worry about tomorrow. It doesn’t matter how wild or turbulent the economy or the marketplace. It’s like riding a horse with one spur - if half the horse goes, the other half has to go along with it. No matter how deep or tempestuous the water, you’re going to be floating on top of it.

Home ownership (the most common form of real estate holding) has been the single largest factor in the accumulation of wealth for the average North American, firstly because of straight appreciation due to inflation, secondly, due to the leverage involved and thirdly real estate has a use and therefore always a value.

Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

Here’s the weekly update for the week of June 1st, 2008 – June 7th, 2008 in Vancouver East and Vancouver West. It looks as though sales were essentially the same as last week (down by two), but new listings spiked resulting in a greater number of active listings.

 Here are the details:

New Listings: 625

Sales: 213

Avg Sale List Price: $746,340
Avg Sale Sell Price: $722,250
Avg Difference: -3.34%
Avg DOM for Sale: 31.08

Sell/List Ratio: 34.5%

Price Changes: 300
Avg New List Price: 781,740
Avg Old List Price: 817,215
Avg Difference: -4.54%
Avg DOM for Price Change: 50

Active Listings: 5087

Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

Here are the real estate statistics for Vancouver West (Westside) and Vancouver East for the month of May 2008. These statistics are compiled graphically by my office, Royal LePage Westside every month.

The statistics are broken into segments for East and West sides of Vancouver. You’ll find graphs for the median selling price, listing supply, sales demand, and price history.

Vancouver West Real Estate Statistics- May 2008

Vancouver East Real Estate Statistics- May 2008

Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

The monthly Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver statistics for May, 2008 were released today. The REBGV press release calls the month a continued “re-balance between sales and listings”. Sales were down 30.7% this past month (3,002) compared to a year ago (4,331). Listings continued their rise up 20.2 % to 7,390 from 6,149 a year ago. 

“With more property listings and a decline in the number of sales, prices are not increasing as rapidly, now down to single digits overall, which is good news from an affordability standpoint,” said REBGV president, Dave Watt. “The housing market is at a balanced state, sellers have more competition and buyers have more selection to choose from.” 

In my own market area of Vancouver we saw the benchmark price for detached (+6.4% Westside and 7.6% East) and apartment homes (+7.8% Westside and +11.5% East) rise year over year. However, looking at the numbers on a month to month basis the numbers tell a different story.  

The benchmark price for detached homes declined from April to May of 2008 (from $1,446,724 to $1,414,230 -2.3%) while it continued to rise in Vancouver East (from $691,988 to $695,368 +0.5%). The benchmark price of apartments, meanwhile, also softened on the Westside (from $494,011 to $491,465 -0.5%) while it continued to rise in East Vancouver (from $331,630 to $334,283 +0.8%).

Vancouver West
Sales: 630
Listings: 1612
Sell/List Ratio: 39%
Active Listings: 3325

Vancouver East
Sales: 319
Listings: 796
Sell/List Ratio: 40%
Active Listings: 1587

Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside

I am going to be doing a weekly update of the real estate stats for my market area (Vancouver East and Vancouver West). I’ll start off the stats with relatively basic numbers, but I am open to expanding the scope of this update if there is demand from my clients and readers.

For the week of May 25th, 2008 - June 1, 2008 we saw:

New listings: 497

Sales: 252
Avg Sale List Price: $759,754
Avg Sale Sell Price: $740,276
Avg Difference: -2.63%
Avg DOM (Days on Market) for Sale: 30.25

Sell/List Ratio: 50.7%

Price changes: 330
Avg Old List Price: $943,603
Avg New List Price: $915,450
Avg Difference: -3.075%
Avg DOM for Price Change: 52.5

Active Listings: 4815

 I’d be interested in hearing your comments.

 Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside