Bear Market at Bear Mountain

Bear Mountain is calling it a bear market and slashing prices at Finlayson Reach and St. Andrews Walk. This was mentioned over at Vibrant Victoria a couple days ago, just haven't had the time to post it yet. H/T to anonymous for mentioning it in the comments of the last post.

Also, H/T to anonymous regarding the auction at Reflections - Chek6 reported that 15 of the 40 units sold. So, 25 condos left. When's the no reserve auction?

Apparently, a local realtor sent out the following email recently. I thought it was good for a laugh.

"You may already know, but I wanted to ensure that you were aware of two significant developments that occurred last week in the Victoria Real Estate Market.

Firstly, Bank of Canada interest rates dropped by another half point followed by most Chartered Banks. Prime Rate now stands at 2.5% which is unprecedented in a generation.

Secondly, the Victoria Real Estate Board announced that the number of sales in the Greater Victoria Region had risen substantially during the month of January over the previous two months.

The reaction in the marketplace to these two events was immediate and dramatic. Buyers sensed that the market was turning and that prices would now begin to stabilize after months of decline and uncertainty. This combined with record low mortgage rates resulted in an amazing number of accepted offers over the weekend on listings that in many cases enjoyed multiple offers. It has been a while since this kind of market activity has been evident in the Greater Victoria Region.

It is a great time to buy and more and more people are recognizing the opportunities that are available."

P.S. Just saw the money printing video, thanks HHV for the link. These are scary times. Thanks Obama.

Quotable Quotes

Cameron Muir, BCREA chief economist, "Homes sales are unlikely to fall much further... That being said we expect home sales not to decline much further." November 15, 2008, Times Colonist.

Tony Joe, Victoria Real Estate Board President, "While we cannot predict the future or remain completely immune from the larger economic forces now at play in the world, we believe much of the recent doom and gloom pessimism regarding the housing market is unwarranted, at least as far as the Victoria area is concerned. Yes, the market has slowed down but we can liken that to some air escaping from the balloon; there is no indication at present that the balloon itself is in danger of bursting. The fundamentals remain strong..." November 15, 2008, Times Colonist, page E9.

Perhaps both of these gentlemen should look at Novembers' sales thus far. I'm estimating that fewer than 100 SFH will have sold in Greater Victoria by the end of this month. Last November there were 310 SFH sales. Not one house has sold in Sooke or Colwood so far this month.

However, the headlines will of course read "Sales slow, prices rebound" as the average SFH selling price thus far in November is near $600000, the median near $550000.

Kiddies, if your mom or dad is a realtor, go easy on them this Christmas. Times are going to be tough for a while longer.

MIA

As a child, time passed by so slowly. I was always told, the older you get, the faster that time goes by. It's true.

I've had a lot going on, so it's come down to prioritizing. The blog has slipped on the importance list. It's nice though how it carries on without me. Please do feel free to continue to use the blog as a forum even as my postings have become less frequent.

Further on the person note, a couple months ago I ranted on how perhaps it was time to get out of the rental market. Well, it looks like we've decided to give our rental suite another year. We'll just make room and organize a little better for when this little person arrives this fall. In a year's time, we'll re-evaluate again.

I have still been keep inventory stats. Listings continue to increase, not quite at the pace as experienced in May though. I have only 6 more condos listed on MLS.ca today than there were on May 31. There are 4 fewer townhomes. There are 96 more SFH. In comparison to last year, there are 282 more SFH listings.

According to this realtor's website, there are right now 4848 active listings in Greater Victoria. This is 230 more than on May 31. The numbers don't make sense. None-the-less, inventory is still increasing.

I got a good laugh out of a realtor's comments on today's market condition. This is a direct quote from an email -

"So I thought "what would I say today about the Victoria Real Estate Market if someone asked"?

My comments would be that we have a balanced market where we are indeed selling at the rate of 1 SALE to 5 LISTINGS or 20% success ratio!!! In Vancouver and Lower mainland the ratio is 1 Sale to 10 LISTINGS or 10%!!

So Victoria is still quite active and prices are staple - a balanced market!"

Go figure!

Deception Part 2

Remember June last year? I ranted over the deceptive scheme being used to sell the Reflections development in Langford. Advertised was a purchase plan for a $335k condo with zero down for $995 per month. Not even in the small print did the ad say that your payments would double after one year.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like Peter Gaby is up to his deceptive ways again this year. This time the development is The Aspen in View Royal. He's advertising a 3 bedroom condo (also 1 bedroom and 2 bedrooms for less) for $1034 per month, with 10% down, 40 year amortization, and a discounted variable rate of 5.25%. At least, the ad does mention that the scheme is "cash back to offset payments over 12 months".

The least expensive 3 bedroom condo in that development has an asking price of $409900. After putting 10% down, your mortgage would be $368910. 40 year amortization, 5.25% rate, gives you a monthly payment of $1826.40.

This year, I'm not as floored over this scheme as I was last year. Truthfully, I'm not surprised. I guess I'm getting jaded.