October 2019 - Market Update!

October 2019 -  Market Update!
Thank you for logging on to read this weeks blog! We are in full swing of the Fall market now and it’s usual uptake in sales has followed suit this year! After a positive 3 months during typically lower seasons, I don’t think many were surprised to find out October increased further in sales activity!

A phrase commonly thrown around this last year sounded something like this:

 “Sales are below the 10-Year average”

Well September saw us get back to these infamous 10 year averages, October saw activity increase and exceed the 10 year average. Ironically those who were chanting the 10 year average is extremely important and shows the market is going to collapse further, are the same ones now saying it doesn’t matter, now it’s exceeded the 10 year average of course! Come on, what’s a blog without a little tongue and cheek humour hey! To be exact, we are 9.8% above the 10 year average this October.

To give you an idea of this months statistics, they look like this for Vancouver’s East and West side.



Interestingly enough, October actually saw a slight increase in the average Home Price Index (HPI). Until recently, this number had been very slowly dropping, even when buyer demand was picking up.

This last month saw a decrease by 16.3%, compared to September 2019, in new listings coming to market. The decrease in available listings, coupled with the continued increase in home buyer demand, has led to us having a combined Sales-to-Active Listings ratio of 23.4%. To put it in plain English, when this ratio is above 20% for a sustained period of time, this puts upward pressure on home prices. Now we are a ways off from that result happening, yet the market change cannot be ignored at this point.

A KEY takeaway to this market is still pricing. Although overall statistics are positive, buyers are still cautious about paying too much for a property. If your figures cannot be realistically justified, your property is likely not to sell. This is shown by the variance on DOM. Property either tends to sell quickly, or sit on the market for a very long time. See our blog here for more on those trends!

So with this being said, if your property is sitting on the market and not going anywhere, this COULD be, and is highly likely, to do with your over pricing. Again, make sure your REALTOR checks the local comparables to give you the best plan of action moving forward.

A further positive to this market is the increase in Detached home sales. The more downward pressure on detached homes, leads to more pressure in condo buildings. It seems for a long time now that single family homes have been taking a huge hit, and not recovering in the same way as condos. October saw a change in that, for detached homes, the Sales-to-Active Listings ratio is sitting around 17.3%. This is firmly in the balanced market range (12-20%). We’ve been lingering closer to the buyers market range for a number of months now so to see this number jump up is a very positive sign to those homeowners.

As always, thank you for joining this weeks blog! We hope you are now ready, willing and able to attach the market with open eyes! For more information, please feel free to reach out and ask! 

Happy Home Buying and Selling!

Until next week,


Jay Mcinnes
T: 604.771.4606
jay@mcinnesmarketing.com

Ben Robinson
T: 604.353.8523
ben@mcinnesmarketing.com