What’s Really Going on in The Real Estate Market?
Today was an absolute whirlwind. Just wrapped up interviews with CBC, Global, and CKNW and I’m sure there will be plenty more following the release of The Real Estate Board’s monthly stats for August. As predicted the Real Estate Board put a nice tone to everything. Although the stats are accurate, the way they are portrayed in my opinion is very bias. In fact they are dangerous when the publics financial decisions are relying on the information. I’m going poke some holes in their data… Actually I’m going to drive a truck through them.
Still a sellers market?
Detached Prices Increased Again?
Processing the wrong Data
Most people don’t know, in fact most Realtors don’t even know that the board releases sales data based on when it is processed! One more time, Processed. I’ve discussed this before with the Vancouver Sun. Which means deals which are signed and agreed upon sometimes months ago could count as an August sale. In fact roughly 1/4 of August sales were deals that were agreed to BEFORE the announcement of the foreign buyers tax on July 25. At least for these areas I studied: Vancouver West: 26% of sales from pre tax announcement Vancouver East: 26% of sales from pre tax announcement Richmond: 27% of sales from pre tax announcement Burnaby: 27% of sales from pre tax announcement If you want real time market info you have to look at when a contract to purchase is actually agreed to by both parties. Agreed upon date (sales date) shows the current market value and the psychology of both buyer and seller when they entered into contract. Deals are supposed to be reported within 7 days as per requirements from the real estate board. However, things happen, Realtors get lazy, offices get swamped in paperwork, etc. Here’s a sale which went under contract in November of 2013. November of 2013 but was finally processed in August 2016 and counted as a sale this month. I can’t even explain this one honestly.
Areas Covered by the board
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