February 24 Week Ending Stats

It was another pretty flat week for MLS.ca inventory for 2 bedroom condos, 3 bedroom townhomes, and 3 bedroom single family homes. Two bed condos and 3 bed townhomes had a small decrease in listings, 3 bed SFH had a minimal increase. I am starting to believe that inventory for 3 bed SFH may not be the best indicator of overall SFH inventory. Victoria has a lot of homes larger than 3 beds. Homes in new developments are almost all larger than 3 bedrooms. I think that 3 bedroom homes are essentially from yester-year. With today's current housing market, a 3 bedroom home often doesn't make sense. A family with 2 or more kids will usually require a larger home (not that there are that many families in this category). Home buyers that need to support their purchase monetarily will look at having a mortgage helper suite. Thus, most new homes are 4 bed, 5 bed, or even larger. Besides, with so much of the home value being in the dirt underneath, you get a lot more bang for your buck with a large home.








Further evidence of 3 bedroom homes not necessarily being a good overall inventory indicator is in the fact that inventory of homes with an asking list price higher than $700000 continues to rise, outpacing lesser priced homes. Inventory of homes less than $700000 is flat, while homes higher than $700k have reached a record percentage of overall SFH listings (since Oct 7, 2006).






Today, there were 865 active SFH home listings on MLS. One month ago, January 27, there were 797 active SFH listings, a difference of 68. There are 28 more active townhome listings, and 25 more condo listings. It is interesting that inventory of home listings is increasing faster than that of condo listings. When new condo developments are released, that's when the inventory of condos gets a shot in the arm. Not much has happened for condo releases over the past month. My question does remain though - why are listings for condo developments like Tuscany Village and The Falls not on MLS??? Having these and other condo projects listed would have a large impact on the inventory of condo listings. Are some developments not listed on MLS to give an impression that the inventory of condos is not as high as it really is? This is for certain - there are a lot more condos for sale than what is listed on MLS!