As mentioned in the last newsletter, the usually robust Fall Market has failed to materialize this year. Many sellers have listed their homes for sale and had their homes either fail to sell or they have received lower offers than they expected. In the latter case, while some sellers have taken the offers and moved on as planned, many have taken their homes off the market. Some savvy buyers have taken advantage of the increased supply and reduced demand..IF they are able to given the impact that the increase in interest rates has on buying power.
The market is very slow...and while that has meant I have been able to take some time off to travel, it does keep me awake at night worrying about the future impacts of market changes on my sellers and my buyers. I also worry about people who are not my clients because some of them are going to have problems when they have to renew their mortgages. I hope that most are able to make it work with the new rates. Many analysts seem to be predicting the market worsening, not improving over the next year or two. Having said that, for sellers who can sell their homes, the prices are not down too much and many have made VERY good returns on their homes despite prices being off the peak. For buyers, while prices are not down as much as they might like and interest rates are up a lot more than they would like, they now have choice and control-two things that are very rare historically and very beneficial when looking for a home.
In November 2023 we saw:
-sales were UP 4.7% from November 2022
-sales were still 33% BELOW the 10-year average for November
-the number of homes listed for sale was UP 9.8% when compared with November 2022
-the number of homes newly listed for sale was 2.8% BELOW the 10-year average
-there were 13.5% more homes on the market at the end of November 2023 than there were in November 2022; 3.7% above the 10 year average
-detached home sales were UP 7% from November 2022
-the benchmark price was UP 4.9% when compared to November 2022; and DOWN 1% when compared to a month earlier, October 2023
-the sales to listing ratio overall is 16.3%; for detached homes the ratio is 12.7%. Prices trend downward when the ratio is around 12%
The numbers above don't look too bad, other than the sales being 33% below the 10 year average for a usually good month. The prices are not down much on paper BUT this doesn't factor in the fact that part of the reason is that sellers have been taking their homes off the market in many cases rather than accepting what buyers are willing to pay. If those homes had sold for current market value we would be seeing more significant price drops. As was the case in September and October, the numbers show that detached homes have suffered the brunt of the market change.
Interest rates continue to be problematic as buyers have been adapting to the last TEN interest rate increases. Fortunately, the Bank of Canada has not raised the rates in its last three announcements-most recently December 6th.
As the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver's Director of Economics and Analytics recently noted, the market conditions for buyers are much better than we have seen for some time...how long that will last remains to be seen.
If you would like to take advantage of this market to buy, or plan your sale or would like more detailed information about what we expect to see over the next 6-12 months, I would be happy to meet with you or discuss by phone.
Happy Holidays!