Meet James Wong.
Mr. Wong is a realtor in Richmond who publishes a monthly report on the health of the market.
On June 16th, before huge mortgage rule changes were announced by Federal Finance Minister Flaherty cutting million dollar homes off from CMHC high ratio mortgage insurance, Wong came out with this report for Richmond real estate.
Richmond’s total home sales for May, 20, 2012 at 271 units was 11% lower than the previous month sales of 306 homes.
The total number of detached homes, townhomes and condos/apartments listed for sale at the end of May at 2,680 units was 6% higher than the previous month’s total of 2,525.
The total active listings for the 3 types of homes in Richmond now surpassed the highest listings registered in September, 2008.
The supply of homes in Richmond at the end of May at 9.08 months edged higher compared to the previous month’s figure at 8.07 months of inventory. The supply of detached homes, townhomes and condos increased further in the month as more listings were put on the market. Overall, the housing market in Richmond is in favour of BUYERS, with a great selection of homes to choose from.
Daily price reductions are common as sellers adjust their selling prices to try to sell their homes.
Richmond real estate market outlook
Both the condo and detached homes markets are facing some challenges. Resale condos have to compete with presale and new homes that are competing for buyers.
Similarly, detached homes are having a tougher time to attract home buyers especially for detached homes that are over $900,000.
Homes over $1,300,000 and new homes that are over $1.80 million are not selling well. With current level of supply, price erosion is evident when more sellers are reducing their prices, and transaction prices are trending down.
Homes under $900,000 in Richmond and those priced realistically are getting more showing activities
There are 566 homes over $1,200,000 listed for sale in Richmond. With past 3 months average sale of 32 units, there are now 17.7 months supply of homes.
The slow sale pace will result in home sellers either taking their homes off the market, or allowing them to go expired unsold.
Some seller’s who must sell will have to resort to much deeper price cut to sell their homes.
Did you catch that?
For the 566 homes priced over $1,200,000 it is expected you will have to wait 17.7 months to sell.
And if you are in a position where you have to sell, you will "have to resort to much deeper price cuts to sell your home!"
And this rosy analysis, which comes from a realtor, came out before Flaherty cut all of these homes off from CMHC high ratio insurance eligibility.
Reports over the summer and into the fall from Mr. Wong should be interesting.
Perhaps even more interesting will be watching to see what sort of price cuts will be required if current conditions intensify.
Reports over the summer and into the fall from Mr. Wong should be interesting.
Perhaps even more interesting will be watching to see what sort of price cuts will be required if current conditions intensify.
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Now on Twitter @village_whisper
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A pretty unbiased, fact-based report. Maybe because he doesn't have any listings on hand (I don't see any on his website, correct me if I am wrong)?
ReplyDeleteYou're not Wong, euhh sorry, wrong :)
DeleteYou need to correct the below statement.
ReplyDelete"For the 566 homes priced over $1,200,000 it is expected you will have to wait 17.7 months to sell."
What he stated is it would take 18 months to sell the current inventory with the current rate of purchase, which is a hypothetical statement. It has nothing to do with waiting because more inventory is going to go online.
It's nice to see a realtor not pretend to have his head in the sand. Kudos to Mr. Wong.
I hope one thing that comes out of this is greater price history transparency. Currently you cannot find out historical prices in your neighborhood without talking with your realtor. I believe this causes a lot of friction in the market, and not in a good way. Canada needs a Zillow type website.
+1 for Zillow.ca!
DeleteHopefully it starts to grow with more listngs.
DeleteI am all in for a Canadian Zillow too. The realtor cabals have screwed us and are more than happy to manipulate when it suits them.
DeleteAnd what can you do about it?.... Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They hold all the cards where info is concerned even though the buying public pays to generate all the data.
Can anybody tell me why the customers (both buyers and sellers of homes) whose activity creates the data should not be privelaged enough to have unfettered access to all the records after the fact? Or at any time they choose in the future too?
It is not as though we did not all pay for the right in the first place. Let's look at this another way.
If realtors demand a commission and the boards and major real estate companies who feed into the MLS all take a cut of that action, then who really paid for it all? Whose money was the source of the database funding and maintenance in the first place?
I say break the monopoly. The sooner the better too.....
PS: Good post today by the way, Whisperer. All of that was news to me. I had no idea things were getting quite so tight in Richmond.