February 2011
REBGV reports increased housing demand in February
Between November 2010 and February 2011, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price of a detached home in Richmond increased $190,739 to $1,099,679; in Vancouver West, detached home prices increased $222,185 to $1,850,072. In comparison, detached home prices across the region increased $51,762 between November 2010 and February 2011 to $848,645.
Up $222,000 since November 2010. I don't know what y'all are smokin' . . .
Sellers showed up to the party too. More new listings than last year and higher total listings.
It's unfortunate they don't break down the number of sales by area. If the entire extra block of sales were in Van West and Richmond, that would be a different situation than the sales being spread out evenly. Oddly, the HPI has not yet been published, nor do they mention the overall HPI number on the report. I'll update charts when that comes out.
2 comments:
Breakdown of cities in Vancouver area can be found in the report here
Benchmark is at new all-time high, as is the average. Interestingly it wasn't just the Vancouver city and Richmond markets that showed strength year-over-year: other areas, in fact most other areas, saw increased sales too, just not as much. There is a general strength to the market. There are a few potential reasons for this:
1) There is more money flowing in
2) Locked in rate from a few months ago have jabbed some families to buy, and this has produced buyer competition for prime properties
3) Rush to buy before March 18th deadline for eliminating the 5%down 35year amortization government-sponsored mortgage insurance option.
I think 1 and 2 are more plausible, the third is touted as a possible reason but when you see the average price well over $1MM, I just don't see most properties being leveraged at 20:1.
A bit farther from Vancouver and the markets are not as ebullient. Fraser Valley is not weak but flat, Victoria is down 5% from peak last year. Kelowna and the interior... let's not talk about that.
The other thing to note is the significant amount of inventory being listed for sale. At current pace of sales and inventory it looks like a marquee year for Realtors; if the listings are portending slower sales later on in the spring, there could be trouble fast. Exciting times.
It is very exciting times. It's like hurricane season at the NOAA.
Thanks for the link. The full report there is much fuller than the one at the REBGV site.
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