April 6 Market Update
The shutdown continues, and so far the number of sales keeps sliding downwards. As I said last week, this is a time when monthly statistics are way too slow to be useful, so you have to look at the more fine-grained stats on market activity and concentrate on individual listings instead of average pricing. Sales and new listings are now down about 55% from this time last year, and compared to the peak just over 3 weeks ago sales have dropped 65% and new listings have dropped in half.
How many sales are required to keep the market from locking up? That’s the million dollar question. What we do know is that the ~150 sellers who normally would have listed last week but didn’t were ones that didn’t need to sell and are doing the prudent thing and waiting. That means the ones that are still putting new properties on the market are much more likely to need to sell soon, or anticipate needing to sell soon and want to get ahead of the market. At this pace of sales though, only about 40% of them will be successful, a decided drop from the some 60% a few weeks back.
Last week I said that in this market you can forget the stats and concentrate on the individual listings and sales prices. You do that with a PCS account (any Realtor can get you one for free or here), and judging from the several dozen emails I received, the big focus for buyers remains detached homes, in the core, with at least 3 bedrooms under a million. No wonder that segment of the market was on fire before the virus hit.
Also a fair amount of investor interest out there. Like it or not, you can be sure that there are many people with their eyes open for favourable deals on investment properties right now. A factor to consider if that’s you is the strength of the rental market, which is likely to get much weaker than it has been at least in the short and perhaps medium term. More on that in a full article coming next week.
Up like an elevator, down like an escalator
We are doing pretty well in BC at flattening our curve, which is a hopeful sign that some restrictions can be lifted sooner (Mayish) rather than later. While life will remain very different here than before coronavirus (BC) for at least a year, the hope and question of the day will be how we can restart as much of the economy as possible while keeping a lid on infections. A one year full shutdown is not an option.
With some luck and sound policy response, many of the people that have lost work will be able to return to it relatively quickly. However there is zero chance that unemployment will immediately rebound to the ultra-low levels we were enjoying earlier this year. This shock is unique, but unemployment rates always go up like an elevator and down like an escalator. This time will be no different.
House prices can certainly rebound and increase during times of higher unemployment, but it will put a drag on the market compared to the full employment situation we were in before.
It’s useful to look at where we were when this hit us in terms of affordability. The updated chart is below.
A few things to note on that chart:
- We can be glad that the mortgage stress test and provincial measures slammed the brakes on the market two years ago. If they hadn’t, prices would be much higher now and the risk of a larger correction would also be higher.
- Before the virus, prices were on track for gains this year, hence the worsening affordability in 2020 (second to last data point on this chart).
- The interest rate drops we’ve already seen have improved affordability from where we were (the last data point provides a rough estimate of the improvement given the volatility in mortgage rates right now).
- This chart uses actual family incomes to 2018 and estimated incomes for 2019 and 2020 (moderate growth). Difficult to tell if we’ll see income drops along with higher employment, but that will certainly affect affordability levels as well.
- After 2008, average mortgage interest rates dropped by 2.6% over the following years. This time we won’t see as much of a drop just because rates were already much lower.
Also weekly numbers courtesy of the VREB.
| April 2020 |
Apr
2019
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | Wk 2 | Wk 3 | Wk 4 | ||
| Sales | 36 | 696 | |||
| New Listings | 103 | 1392 | |||
| Active Listings | 2225 | 2751 | |||
| Sales to New Listings | 35% | 50% | |||
| Sales YoY Change | -56% | ||||
| Months of Inventory | 4.0 | ||||
These are less useful right now than the chart up above, but I’ll keep publishing them for consistency.
Monday numbers: https://househuntvictoria.ca/2020/04/14/april-14-market-update/
If international students come here for four years, on average, that means 25% of the total international student population leaves each year and is replaced with a new 25% each year.
If this shutdown of international students lasts one academic year, then there might be two years worth of international students arriving en masse when the restrictions are lifted.
Students tend to feel invincible and I’m sure this virus is just an annoyance to most international students. They will likely be clamouring to get back to Canada to continue their education vacation.
As far as I know, all international students, including those in high schools, are covered under BC MSP. It is arranged before they admitted into Canada and as part of the student fee package.
But it is known that Covid-19 is more gentle towards young people (although they do get it and possibly even more than other age groups due to they social needs) . So I wouldn’t worry too much about the load.
Strangertimes quoted an article: “Among the 2,846 originally planning to come to Canada, 54 per cent intended to defer entry by a year, 9 per cent wanted to study in a different country and 6 per cent wanted to stay in their home country. Cumulatively, the number of lost applicants for Canada — those choosing another country or opting to remain home — is 15 per cent”
So, that article is pointing at a multi-year 15 percent loss of students coming to Canada.
But the 54 percent shown intending to defer coming for a year is a much bigger problem in the short term. What the article doesn’t really get into is that if travel restrictions don’t come off by this September (or rather much earlier, since students book their tickets and make arrangements ahead of time), that could be 100 percent of students deferred for a year (I hope not!).
If there is no vaccine or other iron-clad medical solution to covid-19 by this fall, will the Canadian healthcare system be ready and willing to treat visiting students that get very sick with covid-19, free of charge? (Should we even take a risk on how that could hurt hospital capacity if we get big outbreaks?) If not, will foreign students’ travel insurance cover hospitalization for what is by now certainly a well-known public risk and expensive to treat for some cases? If the answer to those questions is no, foreign students would be insane to come this fall.
Most international students have gone home at this point. I know that UVic was planning on hiring another person for their program in March, but ended up closing that job application before the interview stage because all their students were going home. I don’t personally think it’ll be one of those things that rebounds right away, and that it’ll take a while to grow back to previous levels. Definitely seeing more student places & fully furnished places up for rent out there. Definitely interested in seeing your take.
If the name isn’t familiar, that’s the bank behind the CHIP Reverse Mortgage. These reverse mortgages are not insured, which might be why they’re being extra careful.
Appraisers not going into properties and doing virtual appraiser-guided live Facetime tours where the appraiser tells the owner where to go and takes photo.
Interestingly enough only the beleaguered HomeEquity Bank is still insisting on in-person appraisers.
Looks like people in Sweden were good enough to not die over the easter long weekend.
Or maybe they just were dying, but kept resurrecting again.
Yeah I’m working on an article on this specific to rental market. Not quite clear to me yet to what extent temporary residents may decline. International students I imagine will continue coming, but perhaps fewer temporary foreign workers?
What are your thoughts on this?
Wasn’t it Ben Rabidoux who posted something more recently about Canada’s population growth and how much of it was related to TFW and students Leo?
Will be interesting to see if there is a noticeable effect on population numbers.
It is on pause. Very few sales, listings and price drops. You still have places like 1883 Lulie which sold yesterday for $1,662,000.
I think to see a 30% drawdown in the $1.5 to $2 million range the entire market from condos to average homes would need to drop substantially. A $1.5 home is not going to drop to $1.1 million while a 900k remains at 900k. At that point people are doing whatever they can (borrowing from parents, etc.) to jump up to the $1.1 million home.
Could a $4 million dollar home drop to $3 million while the market holds relatively steady otherwise? Sure.
“even assuming things go back to normal eventually, things won’t be back to normal by this fall…First of all, I think a lot of students will say to themselves to just wait a year. There will be a chilling effect on applications for the year.”
The British company QS Quacquarelli Symonds, which analyzes global higher education, surveyed 14,416 prospective international students worldwide on the impact of the coronavirus. Among the 2,846 originally planning to come to Canada, 54 per cent intended to defer entry by a year, 9 per cent wanted to study in a different country and 6 per cent wanted to stay in their home country. Cumulatively, the number of lost applicants for Canada — those choosing another country or opting to remain home — is 15 per cent
https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/canada/2020/04/08/billions-of-dollars-are-at-risk-colleges-and-universities-scramble-to-protect-international-student-sector-amid-covid-19-pandemic.html
Maybe because there’s a vaccination (as the article points out) and most people getting ill were likely not vaccinated?
Because these were regional outbreaks within one country? Were problems of this degree happening here in Canada at that time?
Because the US health case system misses a lot of people, as it is doing today?
LeoS: Kudos to you for taking those steps! It will be interesting to see if the other realtors youve identified will make the corrections.
I see that the description for Bruce McMillan’s Sutton Group listing for 2660 Cedar Hill road has now removed the false claim of being “below assessed value”.
However, I also see that that actual Assessed Value field for the listing is correct. Question for LeoM (or anybody):was that data field correct before the latest corrections made to the listing?
Can realtors simply manually adjust or request an adjustment to the Assessed Value data field shown as part of listing info?
If so, why isn’t every single realtor making that correction for every listing they are responsible for?
If not, why are some listings showing the correct latest assessed value, but others not?
That number goes on info flyers for every property, is believed to be current by many potential buyers, and is subsequently recited verbatim to clients by a number of realtors.
So many sectors where covid-19 is causing problems that are unlikely to be fixed for at least a year (even if locally we somehow went back to “normal” tommorow).
Here’s an interesting look at B.C. (and Canada’s) imminent foreign student drought:
“According to federal statistics, international students contributed an estimated $21.6 billion to Canada’s GDP, supporting close to 170,000 jobs through education and other knock-on sectors such as housing, retail and services. The sector was viewed as a key economic driver for Canada and B.C. as Ottawa in 2019 allocated $147.9 million over five years to expand the industry.
…
even assuming things go back to normal eventually, things won’t be back to normal by this fall…First of all, I think a lot of students will say to themselves to just wait a year. There will be a chilling effect on applications for the year.”
…
B.C. schools’ efforts to recruit international students beyond the school year that starts this fall will be even more challenging because of the uncertainty about international mobility in a post-COVID world.”
https://biv.com/article/2020/04/bc-schools-brace-foreign-student-drought
Interesting article in Time magazine from a couple years ago.
But no lockdown, no social distancing, no shutdown of the economy, no mass anxiety, no face masks…
https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/
George Carlin’s take on ‘the virus’ years before COVID-19 appeared
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=_gLLZ_D1Lqw
https://househuntvictoria.ca/2020/04/06/april-6-market-update/#comment-68600
I also am curious on this as well.
Haha I had done so earlier as well. Description on the property is now updated.
Also checked the 20 other properties advertised as below assessed value. 2 were incorrect due to out of date assessments. Notified the agents.
FYI: test numbers, BC is near the bottom now:
He is stating that it is 2019 assessment, so it is accurate information. However agree that it is misleading.
Also it looks like there is a more data passed along than just the assessment price. Looks like there is an assessment year and assesment roll number. So probably a bit more than the 10 second fix James Soper quoted.
My guess would be that it would take a developer at least a couple hours to pull the data from the new format properly. Then his tester would point out that the developer forgot to update the roll number. Than they would have to escalate to the project manager to determine if they really need the assessment roll number. Project manager doesn’t have the expertise to make this call. Giant email string later and everybody is confused about what should and should not be included in the new data load. Perfectly understandable that it has taken this long 🙂
BC is not in a situation where we are even close to being in a situation where there is undue strain on our healthcare system. Unless we see the numbers trending to much upwards again we should start looking at easing restrictions not tightening them further.
Also the health minister said the reports of lots of people travelling to the island were way overblown:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6812160/bc-coronavirus-update-april-13/
P.S. I wouldn’t be against that elevator button spitter in Vancouver being banned from the Island
Here’s one for you, this is a realtors own property recently listed for sale with misleading property assessment from the prior year which just so happens to be 100K higher then last years assessment, its on reator.ca and his own site
https://thaddeusmonckton.com/recip.html#!/wps/-/noframe~true,tmpl~v2/recip/59142/browse/details-91601516
I Just dropped a note to realtor Bruce McMillan of Sutton Group and asked him to change the description.
Should travel to Vancouver Island be restricted? Petition suggests locals only
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/should-travel-to-vancouver-island-be-restricted-petition-suggests-locals-only-1.4893992
Italy hasn’t stopped their spread. They’re still getting 3000 people confirmed a day.
Local Fool: Here’s your people homes.
https://twitter.com/DanDicksPFT/status/1249449767404363776
Caveat emptor:
“Either the listing realtor is aware of the true assessed value or he isn’t. Neither scenario is very flattering to him.”
Yes, either it’s incompetency or fraud.
There are various agents doing this: before the lockdown, giving the older/ incorrect information on open house flyers, and when asked in person.
IF, and it’s a huge IF, the technical problem really is legitimately taking this long to fix, and IF they legitimately cannot make the assessment value data field temporarily left empty when displayed, there is still ZERO excuse for any realtors to be referencing the older values. ZERO.
I thought realtors are farkin proud of their profession, and how necessary it is. Why are they using this weak excuse to mislead and grift their trusting clients?
And to the realtors that aren’t doing this: your silence speaks volumes. Instead of shrugging your shoulders, you should be on the phone demanding that measures be taken to at least strongly discourage what is going on. Where is your pride in your profession, and why aren’t you trying to stop something that, as word spreads, only makes people trust realtors less and question their near-monopoly on MLS data more than ever before?
SUGGESTION to LeoM, James Soper,. and anybody else interested:
Make your own. list of properties that were advertised with old assessment value in the last 3.5 months. If the incorrect assessment was referenced in the listing description, it goes to the top of your list.
If the incorrect assessment value was shown on open house flyers,it likewise goes to top of your list.
If the property has been.sold, how do we find out which new owners paid what they did partially based on bad assessment info?
Write and drop off a generic letter stating the possibility of what has happened, and advising on next steps for the owner to take if indeed they misled.
If prices do go down on coming months (which is still not certain) I have a feeling such new owners are going to be even more pissed.
When you take a look at that house and read this description: ” *** RARE FIND GREAT LOCATION R-2 *** 9,200.sq FT. LOT *** Well kept 1915 Character home with 3 bedrooms up and one down. Upgraded kitchen and bathrooms, one bathroom up and second down with a newer additional living/family room off the kitchen” my worry is that most of the people in the world would wonder “Are Canadians cavemen that consider rare such a place”? I am speechless!
This crossed the line.
It does seem a bit rich to be featuring an outdated number as a major selling point. It’s one thing if the board is just too incompetent to update their database. It’s another level for a listing to actually prominently feature the outdated value.
Either the listing realtor is aware of the true assessed value or he isn’t. Neither scenario is very flattering to him.
This certainly exposes the risk of house prices requiring dual incomes for families to afford. Dual income = twice as likely one person will lose their job
Assessed value scam by a realtor has now gone too far!!! Blatant false advertising to mislead prospective purchasers.
An updated listing at 2660 Cedar Hill Road is advertised by realtor Bruce McMillan of Sutton Group as follows:
From BC Assessment website:
2020 assessment as of July 1, 2019
Total value. $910,000
Land $783,000
Buildings. $127,000
Previous year value. $960,000
Land. $842,000
Buildings. $118,000
Agreed. There is the analogy of a truck rolling downhill. If you apply the brakes, it will slow down. If you let your foot off the brake it will accelerate again. So you need to expect that, and manage the brakes so as to slow it down without burning out the brakes.
Marko: As I stated I am not a stat guy. The death rate for Italy at 30,000 would be .05% Still a tragic number. But it makes one wonder how unprepared we are for a more deadly flu like the Spanish flu .
Most important stay safe, enjoy this glorious day and connect with seniors you love.
Italy stopped their spread with lockdowns. We don’t know what a no-lockdown scenario looks like because it hasn’t been done anywhere.
.5% of 60 million is 300,000.
Vic Investor:
I am definitely not a stats guy but if we take Italy which most would agree is so far one of the hardest hit then one can look at some basic math. Italy has a population of sixty million. If the death rate ends up being about 30,000 then this is still only about .5% of the total population. This is still a tragic number but a long way from the percentages caused by the black death.
Honest question. Does the death rate even matter if the hospitals get filled to overflowing with patients?
Cool animation showing leading causes of death in the US over the last little while.
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1712761/
I think this is inevitable (not sure why a house needs to fold, but prefab).
I don’t think its on municipalities to do it though. I think it will take someone like amazon to bring this to market at scale and at a reasonable price. There are prefab options right now you can buy but they’re tiny shops and not cheap so it isn’t worth it. I’m imagining Amazon pulling off the modern day equivalent of the Sears build it yourself home kits within the decade. Say 10 basic designs that they can produce pretty cheaply, and then municipalities can “pre-approve” those as garden suites to make the process much easier.
I think the $2M+ market already got destroyed by the previous measures.
One assumes that the people in trouble now are the locals that stretched to buy that $900k condo on normal incomes. You can’t save any money and one small disruption means the monthly obligations can’t be met. Really curious about some more robust data, as this will truly be the look under the curtain that we haven’t gotten in decades in Vancouver. Is the city awash in money and incomes don’t matter? Or is it a ponzi scheme of leveraged equity that can’t survive a shock.
Not looking great for the former, but it still all depends on how long the job disruptions last. I still see that it could be saved if we’re all mostly back at work by June. Sure many sectors will take years to recover, but hard to say what the overlap is between those and owners or imminent buyers.
Marko said:
“Are incomes in Vancouver supporting $2 million 1950s boxes?”
You’ve probably heard, Vancouver incomes haven’t been the driving force in the bubble there. Victoria median family income in 2017 census was $96k, but Vancouver’s was much lower, $86k. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Canada_by_median_household_income)
Many Vancouver households’ money comes from overseas (undeclared income in Canada), regularly supporting those $2+ million homes’ mortgages.
That’s a big part of how Vancouver got into its mess in the first place, while simultaneously having places like Richmond reported as having some of the highest child poverty rates in Canada.
And since covid-19 is affecting overseas incomes too, some Vancouver households are going to be wired less money than they’re used to, for a while anyways.
BTW, in March, before any covid-19 effects had made it into Vancouver sales stats, Vancouver proper detached homes were at a 31% sales price decline from their 2017 peak. Why isn’t the Vancouver real estate board, the MSM, and everyone else finally calling that what it was, and what was denied as possible for so long – A VANCOUVER REAL ESTATE BUBBLE, which has burst!
How are Vancouver, and BC, consumers supposed to learn the lessons of real estate bubbles if the MSM is shouting from the rooftops while the prices go up, but refuses to admit it was a bubble when prices plummet 31% ? (And that’s still before covid-19 !)
Guess people are just over reacting and going to the hospital in droves in Italy, Spain, China, New York.
You would think places like Calgary or even Victoria would be more exposed to unemployment and defaulting on mortgage payments. Are incomes in Vancouver supporting $2 million 1950s boxes?
Just came across on this on YouTube for garden suites….if only municipalities were reasonable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD4bj5EVfjM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Zf_AaiyC8
Yeah, I would assume it’s the Van Sun article that mixed up the figures. It was based on an online poll of around 250 homeowners, so it won’t be very accurate, but even if it was off by a factor of 4, it’s still astronomical.
I don’t think it’s unrealistic to suspect that Vancouver homeowners are perhaps the poster-children of pay-check to pay-check.
They sure had fun driving prices to the moon. Do you remember that, when no force was able to stop it?
The ride down will be terrifying and perhaps even worse than I imagined. I hope real estate becomes a pariah for the next decade – and wait for it, people will provide all kinds of reasons why real estate will never recover again.
Don’t fall for it – this is the type of event that real wealth is built on, though perhaps not so much in my case, haha. 🙂
That seems more likely. Vancouver sun screwed that up. Still. 32% of Vancouver mortgage holders can’t go 2 weeks without income before missing a mortgage payment?? That is pure insanity if true.
What in the ever living hell? That can’t be right.
” The poll also found that 68 per cent of Vancouver home owners did not pay their full mortgage on April 1, and that 55 per cent were not expecting to make their full mortgage payment on May 1.”
https://vancouversun.com/news/covid-19-city-of-vancouver-at-risk-of-bankruptcy-says-mayor/wcm/8fd95f9e-2cd0-4d67-b83d-c19ee6fe284d/
“Only 68% of home owners said they could pay their full mortgage payment last month, and only 55% said that they will be able to do the same in May. On property tax, 25% said they will pay less than half of their 2020 tax bills, with six percent planning to pay nothing, according to the Research Co. survey.”
https://www.squamishchief.com/vancouver-mayor-warns-of-drastic-measures-without-federal-and-provincial-government-help-1.24116805
Any sense on the high end market(over $1.5M)? I thought that market wasn’t moving before this, has to dead now? Do you think we could see a Vancouver 30% drawdown in price there or is there a level of support there that would prevent that from dropping too much?
James Soper, Leo M, etc:
I agree this is a very serious matter, and has gone on far too long to reasonably be given the benefit of the doubt.
Has anybody contacted the BC “Office of the Superintendent of Real Estate” yet? Is that even the right place to complain about this, or is there a better consumer advocacy group?
From their website:
‘The Office of the Superintendent of Real Estate (OSRE) is a regulatory agency of the B.C. government that protects consumers who are buying, selling or renting a home.”
…
“OSRE provides oversight and regulation of the real estate industry in B.C. ”
…
“OSRE is mandated to protect the public interest and prevent harm to consumers.”
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/central-government-agencies/office-of-the-superintendent-of-real-estate
What if these authors are right and the infection mortality rate (IFR) is ~ 0.12%? If would make our draconian measures look real stupid.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022434v2.full.pdf+html
hahaha what a joke. This is like a ten second fix if they cared at all.
Super convenient year for that to happen.
What’s the over under on it happening again next year?
LeoM 2020 stats are going to be so bad that it may all not matter. Hope you get the chance to get out and enjoy the sunshine.
Best to you and yours.
The local real estate association is either totally incompetent or purposely using the old assessed value. I worked with dozens of programmers for over 25 year on mainframe relational databases and this change in format for a single field, in a one-to-one relationship is a half day job for a mediocre programmer. We are not talking about a many-to-many relationship here, we are not talking about major architectural changes to the data entity relationship diagrams, just a dead simple static field that is populated from just a lookup table. Moreover, the listing realtor can simply input the correct assessed value when creating the mls listing.
This negligence by the real estate association will also screwup all the future yearly ‘statistics’ of the percentage of properties that sold for x% over or under assessed value, especially because a few listing realtors are actually imputing the correct assessed value but the majority I’ve checked are using the old assessed value, consequently all future statistics which rely on assessed value will be bogus for 2020.
I hope the association gets sued.
FYI: Andrea Bocelli: Music For Hope – Live From Duomo di Milano (today)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=346&v=huTUOek4LgU&feature=emb_logo
We spent 5 weeks in Italy last fall, beautiful place and lovely people. What a treasure.
There are grumblings growing in areas of the ‘expert’ community about how effective this whole approach we are taking is going to be, especially with the catastrophic economic and mental health consequences we will soon be seeing the effects of in the near future. Some experts are coming out and saying we should just ‘rip the band-aid off’ with herd immunity while the vulnerable population remains in lockdown. Their reasoning is that if you take out the most high risk categories, this is no more than a bad flu season. In a typical flu season, a percentage of the ‘healthy’ population will get sick and die as well, but this also happens every year, for which society is not shut down. Once herd immunity is achieved and the virus fizzles out, then the elderly/high-risk can re-join. Food for thought.
Jury is still out as more data obviously needs to be taken to make a sound decision. This virus is so new and we know very little – ie., how long immunity would even last. For now lockdown is prudent and best course, but if it is indeed the case that for most this is similar to the flu and immunity appears to be long-term, this should be given more consideration, because we are most definitely headed for an economic depression if we stay this course until a vaccine is available. And that will come with consequences that most here have not lived through or can imagine.
Marko: enjoy the hike and the day.
Yea good luck with the class action there, it’s probably one of the biggest issues in the world right now.
I am going for a hike 🙂 Happy easter.
You are absolutely correct, however it must mean that Victoria have many retirees with +40 year old children living in their basements.
Also correct, but we have to look at the macro picture as to what percentage of Langford population who can’t afford payments and compare it with the rest of the Canada before we jump to conclusions.
As for wealth, the data shown that the average declared income of Victoria families is lower than Langford but the gap is much smaller than overall median income, which indicates there is a large inequality between rich and poor in Victoria when compared to the equality in Langford.
And, I didn’t see Victoria on the list in your link.
Marko:
When was it first known that the format of the raw data was being changed? It certainly wasn’t Dec 31, 2019.
Why isn’t that data field simply disabled or left with some empty default value instead of allowing buyers to be deceived?
Why are some real estate agents still verbally quoting and printing up the incorrect value when asked? Are they being incompetent, or fraudulent?
For any number of buyers in the last 3.5 months that have made a purchase decision in part because of that incompetent/fraudulent misrepresentation, what is suitable monetary compensation, and who will pay it? (BTW, it only matters that the buyer thought the data helped decide on purchase price, it doesn’t matter if you think it should or not)
Board is aware and they are working on it…..”BCA has changed the format of the raw data they supply to real estate boards. We’ve been working with….”
Some of us old timers would argue that if you’re buying cars and toys on credit, you can’t actually afford them. I’m thinking that a large number of those toy owners are now discovering the truth of that.
Close but not quite what I said. Census families include retirees.
Yes, I am sure there is a lot more wealth in Victoria. I think the point was that Langford inhabitants have the income to afford buying /paying for their toys parked in their driveways. If they had bought a house in the core instead their higher mortgage payments would make it harder for them to pay for them.
Why don’t you go for a drive in your 3 series beemer and give us all a break.
There’s income, and then there’s wealth. I don’t see Langford on this list.
https://www.macleans.ca/economy/money-economy/canadas-richest-communities-2019/
Having the cashflow to service debt =/= wealth.
The average US down payment on buying a home is 10%. Of course some pay less than that.
For example JP Morgan has, (for customers with a >620 credit score ) a 3% down “dream maker” mortgage. Or at least they used to have that. JP Morgan have just tightened new mortgage requirements to 20% down and >700 credit score.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jp-morgan-mortgages-credit-exclusive/exclusive-jpmorgan-chase-to-raise-mortgage-borrowing-standards-as-economic-outlook-darkens-idUSKCN21T0VU
This is the private sector version of the “stress test”, and the Canadian banks are doing it too.
Net expected result… lower home prices, lower sales, fewer FTB. And many of those who do qualify will end up paying higher rates based on the banks’ tightened risk assessment.
3.5 months and a patch has yet to be completed allowing PCS to show proper assessment data.
Any programmers out there? How long would something like this take?
It really does show that this is a deliberate effort to not have to display data that showed assessed values dipped last year. What are they going to do when assessments dip this year because of COVID? Keep using 2019 data until assessments finally rise?
Happy Easter Sunday to one and all. stay safe but also be happy.
Here ya go!
Statistics Canada Census Profile, 2016 Census – https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CSD&Code1=5917044&Geo2=PR&Code2=59&Data=Count&SearchText=Victoria&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Income
Langford:
$95,122 Median total income of two-or-more-person households in 2015
$113,603 Median total income of couple economic families with children in 2015
Victoria:
$77,608 Median total income of two-or-more-person households in 2015
$103,30 Median total income of couple economic families with children in 2015
Victoria has way more single person, retiree, and student households than Langford. Thus the comparison of household income & home ownership isn’t meaningful.
If you compared income of working age families between the two, Victoria would likely be higher than Langford. And in general:
BC’s metros are fragmented into many municipalities, thus comparisons of any single one with other cities in Canada aren’t very meaningful since the latter cover most or all the metro area.
B.C. suburb the least obese city in Canada – https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-suburb-the-least-obese-city-in-canada-1.659588
US studied of homeowners vs. renters, and low value homes (condos/townhouses vs. detached SFH) – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889661/
“Compared to female homeowners in the highest category of property values, renting was associated with a 3.2-fold increase in the prevalence of obesity, independent of other factors, while owning a low value home was associated with a 3.7 fold increase in the prevalence of obesity.”
James said: “So no new cases on the island today. This thing is over already pretty much.”
WOW! That’s great news, James! Now that we’re all vaccinated and the virus can’t possibly come back, let’s all just resume things like it never happened! How about we all meet up for pasta at the shoulder-to-shoulder crowded Pagliacci’s restaurant, to celebrate?
Wait.. our friend Singapore is raising her hand, has something to say…
“Singapore has been held up as a role model for its early and decisive response to the threat. ”
…
“But Singapore’s lauded response has come into question. This week, it enforced a partial lockdown as it struggles to contain a sharp rise in coronavirus cases. ”
…
“The move underscores the risks that the coronavirus poses — even after a country has seemingly taken the necessary steps to protect itself”
…
“Singapore is in the grip of what experts call a second wave of infections. ”
…
“Last month, it appeared that Singapore had managed to keep a lid on coronavirus infections”
https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/singapore-had-the-coronavirus-under-control-now-its-locking-down-the-country/
So it looks like we in BC are all on a bus that’s careening down a steep hill. We’ve done well to apply the brakes on the bus, and have stopped the bus, but we’re only partway down the hill.
James, you’re claiming victory over the hill and exclaiming we can take now take our foot off the brakes, and that the problem has been solved! But, there’s a lot of hill left to go down.
Care to guess what happens if we completely release the brakes and act like the danger is over? (Psst – if you need a hint, go ask our friend Singapore.)
No sign of the easter dip yet this year. One of those things that doesn’t affect the remaining buyers and sellers.
That’s called re-marketing.
It’ll go away eventually.
Or just you know, stop looking at ads. +1 for Ublock Origin & firefox. Could also stop using google (www.duckduckgo.com)
The bottom line is bears waiting for the day of the pillow in Oak Bay have been let down once again.
Who’s buying?
American != Canadian, suburban US != the Westshore, and fat American != highly active West Coast Canadian.
In fact the suburban reality is less activity and higher levels of obesity than cities . This has been documented in several studies.
https://consumer.healthday.com/encyclopedia/weight-control-39/obesity-health-news-505/a-tale-of-a-few-cities-how-sprawl-affects-your-waistline-644596.html
“Pretty low proportion of forenters in the western communities for sure.“
Judging by all the purpose built rental going up out there, not for long.
Pretty low proportion of forenters in the western communities for sure. I can understand the bear hatred.
“but not sure where this envy of other people’s stuff comes from. People should be free to buy things as they see fit.”
I don’t feel envious. I just don’t have the debt tolerance that other people have I guess. Especially for depreciating assets.
Combine with much higher income, and more active younger population than Victoria.
Langford:
$80,331 median household income
38.3 median age
70% are home owners
30% are renters
Victoria:
$53,126 median household income
42.3 median age
39% are home owners
61% are renters
https://townfolio.co/bc/langford/summary
QT,
Isn’t that a great video? Can you see the route the street car takes through downtown ’till it gets to the Empress? There’s a few clues in there if you take a look. Hope everyone is enjoying the spring weather…maybe even time to fire up the BBQ.
Just read an interesting story from Germany: In Hamburg, all deaths with corona infection are examined by the Institute of Forensic Medicine. By April 10th, they examined total 44 bodies, and found the cause of 9 deaths was not Covid. The other 35 deaths were caused by Covid, but they all had other health issues, although some of the issues might not be known to the person/family. So the head of the institute, Professor Klaus Püschel stated:
“This virus influences our lives in a completely excessive way [which] is disproportionate to the danger posed by the virus… [likewise] the astronomical economic damage now being caused is not commensurate with the danger posed by the virus. I am convinced that the Corona mortality rate will not even show up as a peak in annual mortality.” He states that in Hamburg for example, “not a single person who was not previously ill had died of the virus: all those we have examined so far had cancer, a chronic lung disease, were heavy smokers or severely obese, suffered from diabetes or had a cardiovascular disease. The virus was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. Covid-19 is a fatal disease only in exceptional cases, but in most cases it is a predominantly harmless viral infection.”
https://www.pressreader.com/germany/hamburger-morgenpost/20200403/281487868456736
But I suspect this might be true only for developed countries with better medicare systems, like Germany or Canada.
So no new cases on the island today. This thing is over already pretty much. Sounds like a boom of epic proportions is about to be unleashed in the next 30-60 days bears. I’d say we’ll hit double digit price growth by the end of the year. BC has proven to be basically immune to this thing.
Since playgrounds are forbidden, we’ve been going on daily little hikes with the kids. The weather is awesome, and there are dozens of fantastic parks and trails in Greater Victoria.
Just talked to family in Calgary, where tomorrow’s forecast high is -5 with chance of flurries. #VictoriaAdvantage
That goes along with taking the consequences if they don’t have the money to pay the mortgage.
Personally i don’t mind the media blowing this up to an extent – if people had taken this serious months ago thousands of lives would have been saved. If people are becoming fearful then good – stay in your home – don’t take the ferry out for the long weekend. It’s ridiculous. Now admittedly there are stupid people out there buying up all the TP, pasta etc which isn’t good for anyone but in general if a little fear saves some lives then that’s OK in my book. In case you are unaware of how this is going this video does a good job of comparing showing exactly where we are in comparison to other world events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_wZQ8fVIwQ&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2_JqMCRVJ_IKd6KhieKRETJKuXWVmuqmZQPqrJKSSXvx-ESEHtVjeWewQ
People in Langford might also be able to afford more toys, because their mortgage payments are lower than those buying in the core.
I am not saying that everyone that has these things things is making financially sound decisions, but not sure where this envy of other people’s stuff comes from. People should be free to buy things as they see fit.
Beautiful out. Hiking out at Francis king, almost no one out there and the few people we met on the trails were easy to step aside for. There’s definitely a bit of an overblown reaction from people freaking out about people going to parks. Dr. Henry has said multiple times that she’s not that concerned about people going out. Just have to find the less popular parks.
FYI A thought from Jayshree Shukla (India):
“Social distancing is a privilege. It means you live in a house large enough to practice it. Hand washing is a privilege too. It means you have access to running water. Hand sanitisers are a privilege. It means you have money to buy them. Lockdowns are a privilege. It means you can afford to be at home. Most of the ways to ward the Corona off are accessible only to the affluent. In essence, a disease that was spread by the rich as they flew around the globe will now kill millions of the poor. All of us who are practicing social distancing and have imposed a lockdown on ourselves must appreciate how privileged we are. Many Indians won’t be able to do any of this.”
Many disadvantaged people in Victoria (and Canada) may not have the privileges either …
The kind of people who create a bunch of bills for themselves, then complain about all the bills, then blame government taxes.
You allow yourself to look at ads? Install the free plugin uBlock Origin and never see another ad again.
That would be spreading of exaggerated rumours. Scientific facts are not rumours. Including the scientific fact that health care workers are at higher risk from covid – I posted the link to the data and studies. I have family members who are essential health care workers. You are not exposed in the ICU right now. Maybe you would feel the same if you were, maybe not, but those I know do not.
And yes, it is kind of a jerk comment to say things like “so 100 doctors have died in italy as if a doctor has never died” when the direct cause of death for those doctors was covid. This is not some voluntary assumption of risk by health care workers for the good of the public while people gets to head out to Gabriolia against requests from elected officials and say, well, other jobs are riskier – so what.
FYI: you are currently here (comparing to 1918 flu and 2009 H1N1 flu):
http://pic.caixin.com/blog/Mon_2004/m_1586583941_JlGPMp.jpg
“I speak to a RT friend at least 5 times a week and on average there is no extreme stress. Not to mention I’ve talked to 7 or 8 RTs in the last month at least once.”
Only nurse I know claims that they were told to take off as much time as they want right now because things are so slow.
I go outside every day for a run, walk, bike ride, to the store to get food, whatever. Most people I encounter, particularly those outside getting some exercise are very respectful, keep their distance, pass each other with wide margins, etc. I’m also seeing more and more people wearing masks.
Our local Thrifty’s has done some pretty simple things to keep the store (and hands) clean and allow people to keep their distance from one another, and I’m seeing this in other stores too. In conjunction with the numbers coming from the Province, I am encouraged by this and I wouldn’t call myself an eternal optimist.
It’s good to see people behaving like grown-ups and taking this seriously, while carrying on with their lives in a limited capacity. I don’t think the sky is going to fall, and I even think some positive things will come out of this.
Okay, this post is kind of related to real estate.
We all know many web pages include an advertising portion at the top or middle,.etc, ostensibly served up by something like Google ad matching tech. Im talking about ads being served on regular web pages on any topic, originating from anywhere, and I’m not talking about ads directly on Google search pages.
So, for the past few weeks I’m very frequently being served up the same ad by a Victoria real estate agent, no matter what website I’m on, over and over and over again. I get that Google systems have identified my interest in real estate, and it makes sense for them to serve that up me, at least at first.
But serving it to me ad infinitum seems stupid, and is annoying.. After ignoring it the first couple of weeks, and it didn’t go away, I tried clicking on it every time I saw it (which my understanding is, unfortunately makes Google charge the advertising realtor for ads served). That didn’t change anything either.
Not sure I have a right to be annoyed, but it is annoying. (Did I mention the ad is not even in English, except for the realtor’s name? But it would still be annoying, regardless). Imagine if every time people watched television they saw the same commercial, even back to back to back, etc. Every. Single. Time.
Google ad settings are decided by the advertiser, so I don’t know that there’s anything i should or can do (maybe I can try blocking the real estate agent’s url, but not sure Google AdWords will catch that).
Ive never looked at the inside of Google ads customer process in detail, but is it possible that this realtor is using overly aggressive ad settings that should be tuned better? Are the realtors ad settings purposely selfish, or simply lacking understanding of how the whole thing works?. I can’t see why, if I’ve already finally visited her page, she would want Google to still keep serving me that ad endlessly. I’m pretty sure Google itself is smarter than to let that happen unless the advertiser chooses such a setting.(Maybe if I click on her ad the next thousand times it is served to me, it will help? 😉 )
The only other time this has happened was around six months ago, and also an ad by a Victoria real estate agent. That real estate agent ad also lasted for months, and followed me absolutely everywhere. Why does this seem to happen only with real estate agents’ ads? Of course I’m a target demographic for many other businesses, but once after I’m served with those other ads once or twice those are smart enough to go away and not lose any more money on me, are replaced by something else.
I can’t imagine a real estate agent getting new clients from people who are sick of endlessly being stalked by their ads — especially when potential clients can’t even read the language the ad is written in. Are they purposely paying extra for abnormally aggressive online marketing settings that paradoxically will ensure
potential clients will never want anything to do with them?
I speak to a RT friend at least 5 times a week and on average there is no extreme stress. Not to mention I’ve talked to 7 or 8 RTs in the last month at least once.
RTs I know bigger topic of discussion is why nurses got $5 extra per hour because of Covid19 and they didn’t.
Having worked as a RT in ICU for four years if I felt my skills were up to date and relevant I would go in and I don’t think I would be anymore stressed out than I was before when I worked ICU….it is stressful job by nature. It’s not like we didn’t have to deal with isolation precautions before COVID. Nightshifts take 10 years of your life i would be more worried about that than 1 in 500 Covid19 kills me assuming i pick it in a very controlled environment.
And yes I know 100 doctors have died in italy as if a doctor has never died.
I am guessing your chances of dying on the job are still lower than many other professions.
Not to be a jerk but your fearmongering is getting to be a little ridiculous.
“I agree, not sure why people would believe deferral would include debt forgiveness. Also thousands of dollars of extra costs over the lifetime of a mortgage, would usually only mean a few extra months of payments at the end of the amortization period.”
Most mortgages also have prepayment privileges. I’m guessing that most people will have the means at some point to make up the six months. Then again, every third house in Langford has a brand new truck, a boat, and an RV parked in the driveway so maybe not.
Because they think they’re entitled to a handout. Can’t blame them too much given the amount of actual handouts going on.
Edit: just occurred to me that most of them would be getting some of those other handouts.
I agree, not sure why people would believe deferral would include debt forgiveness. Also thousands of dollars of extra costs over the lifetime of a mortgage, would usually only mean a few extra months of payments at the end of the amortization period.
If I was in a position of not being able to pay my payments, I would happily take the deferral. Even if that meant I wouldn’t have my mortgage paid off until I was 61 (instead of 60), if it meant I could stay in my house right now and not get foreclosed on.
Actually in Victoria area, people in their early 60s are “youngsters”. Our family doctor joked about our age during recent phone visit, and we don’t even feel that comfortable to go for senior shopping hour without gray hairs. 😉
Space is only one issue. In ICU, when you intubate or care for a person as a result of a motor vehicle crash you don’t put yourself and your family at risk of covid. Health care workers, when they are infected, seem to get sicker than their age cohort should suggest, which could be because they are exposed to higher doses of the virus. In addition, young people may not be dying of Covid-19 in high numbers, but they are still at risk for severe, debilitating disease.
If we are speaking in anecdotes, a respiratory therapist and other ICU staff working in Victoria that I know were extremely stressed by the fact that people were travelling over the long weekend. They found it disheartening and are dreading any increase in cases as a result.
As for the reaction to covid being overblown? Perhaps if we were a mask-wearing culture at the outset like Japan we might have been able to stop the transmission chain with fewer and less severe restrictions. I’m looking forward to reading the research on that. I think it is easy to say a threat is overblown after the fact when you have a positive result from social distancing. All you have to do is look to other places that did not react as quickly or as strongly and have had much more negative impacts.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/4/2/21197617/coronavirus-pandemic-covid-19-death-rate-transmission-risk-factors-lockdowns-social-distancing
If we are really able to suppress transmission in BC I expect we’d be able to engage in limited economic reactivation once we have widespread testing and contact tracing in place. If this happens I would imagine the impact on the housing market would be lessened immediately. People will have faith that this won’t be forever and that the economy can recover.
Even in Italy the other day they were handing out fines for being out without a permit and 24 people in one of those fined tested positive for COVID19.
I’ve also seen people I know die from brain cancer at 26 yrs old, pancreatic cancer at 33 years old, car accident at 21….etc. etc.
This hockey player just died today at 25 -> https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/edmonton-oilers-forward-colby-cave-144423689.html
In most age brackets odds of death in a car accident are higher than COVID19. I am in favor of flattening the curve but once stabilized need to move to start getting things back to normal like getting elective surgeries going again, dentists opened, etc.
Media is portraying COVID like it has a mortality of 50%.
Problem is you can’t put them in a bubble. Even those who are already in a bubble of sorts (LTC) are being hit hard.
Well that’s a bit demoralizing to learn.
In terms of risk factors for mortality:
Age > 65 and the following:
1) cardiovascular disease esp heart failure
2) COPD
3) Obesity esp BMI >40
4) Hypertension
5) Diabetes
VicInvestor: In spite of being in the super high risk category I have to agree shutting down the whole economy is almost counter productive. Managing the risk for those over 60 is more sensible (and for those high risk individuals under 60.
Sorry, but the Deep-State-vaccine paranoia and the complete misjudgment of Hillary Clinton disqualifies this person as intelligent, and as normal (I hope).
A slightly more positive and balanced view on the severity of Covid-19 from a well-respected and prominent scientist:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054361v1
“CONCLUSIONS: People <65 years old have very small risks of COVID-19 death even in the hotbeds of the pandemic and deaths for people <65 years without underlying predisposing conditions are remarkably uncommon. Strategies focusing specifically on protecting high-risk elderly individuals should be considered in managing the pandemic.”
Aren’t we (and the whole world) the blind men with this Covid elephant? Anyone can say anything about it but no one really knows the whole truth now.
All I know is what I see: we have a close neighbor (late 20s) who was in hospital and then home, just been given an okay to go outside a few days ago after 16 days home isolation. He said the first week was very bad and he is still feeling weak now. But that might just be the little toenail of this elephant, who knows.
Apparently people are surprised that compound interest has not gone away in this time.
Big banks slammed for charging customers interest on interest for deferred mortgage payments
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/banks-charge-interest-on-interest-for-mortgage-payment-deferral-1.5529399
A peep into 1907 holistic living in downtown Victoria and Vancouver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp1qWV5OZec
Victoria British Columbia ( Past & Present 1907-2010 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EblRxlfskk
Local Fool said:
“Apparently he’s doing a lot of telemedicine as a result but didn’t have qualms about seeing people”
Every doctor is different. I respect my own doctor too, and several weeks ago he made all appointments that were booked before all this started into phone appointments (insofar as possible). His clinic’s patients had no choice.
Marko said:
“What you see in the media from doctors… is unfortunately not necessarily how health care professionals behave themselves.”
A frontline hospital emergency worker i know has similarly seemed to not be all that worried about coronavirus for herself. But on the other hand, from their perspective they see horrible things day in and day out, they’re jaded, and after all they wouldn’t be working the emergency ward of hospitals if they were prone to freaking out about catching something from a sick patient. It would be like being a fireman when you’re scared to death of any fire — it doesn’t happen.
What are they supposed to do, quit and leave the job? No, they aren’t going to do that. But if you’ve seen what they’ve seen and know you have to stick around that kind of situation, you may just be convincing yourself that everything is fine and you’re in control so long as you follow all your medical training precautions.
All that said, I can’t decide whether the whole thing is overblown in Canada or not. As I mentioned days ago, Japan’s lockdown is a joke, and they might be doing ok. Okay, they DID take a big step in last few days — from now on pubs in Japan are ONLY allowed to stay open until 8pm! (That does sound pathetic, doesn’t it? But it’s a big step for a place with such a big drink-after-work culture)
BTW, I did run into someone today that went on a rant how the whole corona virus thing is “being way overblown”. He then proceeded to tell me that there’s no way in hell he will ever get “one of those Bill Gates vaccines they’re developing, because Bill Gates is just part of the Deep State! Who knows what they’ll put in there!”. Mind you, this is the same person (and normal/intelligent for every other subject of conversation) who a couple years ago was so glad Hillary Clinton didnt become president because she is (in all seriousness) a proven devil worshipper who molests children. Sigh. But I digress..
Funny, I was at the doctor on Thursday getting an allergy shot and had that casual discussion. I know both of the physicians there as I’ve been going there for some time – nice guys too. Neither of them, including the one that saw me wore masks, gloves, or anything like that. Absolutely business as usual, except for the fat notice at the entrance not to come in if you’re symptomatic.
Funny, he more or less echoed the sentiment that Marko did. He said he wasn’t afraid, but that he “respected” the potential threat of a novel virus. In his perspective it was the general public that was afraid more than doctors and many patients are refusing to come to clinics for this reason. Apparently he’s doing a lot of telemedicine as a result but didn’t have qualms about seeing people in person so long as they didn’t report coughs or fevers. He expressed concern for people with congestive heart failure and diabetics, but even those people are being sent home to recover unless they develop breathing issues.
I asked him if he thought the virus was dangerous, and he refused a yes or no answer, but he said based on the info he has seen to date and his experience with patients that the level of fear he was seeing was excessive relative to the actual threat demonstrated to date, but that the information could change rapidly as they learn more (basically gave me the “safe” answer). He seemed more concerned with people’s mental health, actually. Personally, I’m inclined to share his sentiment.
Indeed, there is much to be happy about and thankful for. Take a look at your life right now, honestly. Are you really in danger right now? You are physically safe, have food, shelter, a robust medical system, friends, family and are likely prosperous in the material sense. So many people in the world live in deplorable conditions with nothing, with this illness running around and few people to help them. We are as lucky to live here as we ever were, are we not?
I hope you are out safely enjoying the wonderful spring weather we’re having, spending time in your gardens, doing puzzles, or going out for a nice walk with a loved one. Don’t be afraid to go to the store when you need to – you’ll be impressed with how careful, understanding and conscientious everyone is being.
Don’t waste your time reading the media’s virus porn, having fear and/or obsession consume you as it has others on here. It might be tempting but it’s psychological cancer. Media thrives on writing fear like it always does, saying and quoting whoever will give them a story that they think will maximize your likelihood of clicking their links and tuning in. You have no control over anything going on out there but what you do, so focus on the latter (it really does make a difference!) and the simple fact that like everything else, this will eventually pass.
Have a great weekend everyone, and happy Easter! 🙂
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” ― Marcus Aurelius
Still plenty of space in ICUs. While there is 67 COVID patients in ICUs my friend informs me for BC they are approx. at same overall numbers as last year (less people in MVAs, etc. to offset the COVID patients).
Also, very very low oxygen requirement criteria for ICU. Kind of like Boris Johnson….I knew his ICU stay was probably a bit overkill given he was on nasal prongs for oxygen as I commented on here a few days ago when it was reported he was being transferred to ICU.
I am guessing anyone younger requiring any oxygen and positive for COVID they will stick into the ICU if there is space just as a precaution. ICUs also have negative pressure rooms which aren’t super common on the ward.
I have a friend that works in ICU that took the ferry in the last few days to pick up a new camping toy on the mainland. Nurses are now getting $5 extra per hour due to COVID 🙂 so more dispensable income.
Also, a lot of my showings are front line medical professionals. What you see in the media from doctors “please stay at home” is unfortunately not necessarily how health care professionals behave themselves.
In BC there are 67 people in critical care with coronavirus as of yesterday.
One month ago today this was Marko’s comment:
I’m not saying this to be a jerk, but it is remarkable what has happened in a month. Our current numbers are better than predicted, but I don’t believe any staff member in any ICU in Canada would make this statement today. Everyone is worried and they are at higher risk of contracting the virus and passing it on to their families and co-workers. I don’t know why there were line-ups at the ferry today, but non-necessary travel does not seem to be the right way to show respect to people who are already at risk because they are there for you if you fall ill.
Anyone else remember when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was fretting over BMO’s irresponsibly low 2.99% fixed rate mortgage? 🙂
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-mortgage-demand-drops-as-lenders-tighten-standards-amid-pandemic/
NM. I’m the idiot here.
They dug one mass grave once a week.
Now they’re doing it every day.
Either way.
I’d say it’s a change.
I thought reading comprehension was your specialty.
Why would they dig a mass grave for 25 people a week?
Judging by the name it might not be the go to location for unbiased analysis.
What I’ve learned so far today on HHV:
However, perhaps the group is meant to only document local real estate price haircuts if Victoria enters a bear market? I see nothing wrong with that. When prices are on the way up we Victorians are treated to frequent examples and reminders of price gains, everywhere (including anecdotes/MSM/news), and advised that “prices are going up and you’d better get in soon!” (Yes, those were even the exact words by a Chek-TV news anchor once on the 6pm news, as he led into a story about Victoria real estate gains!) . When prices are going down those same voices stay overwhelmingly quiet (talk about unbalanced reporting!).
Sure, why not have a Facebook group documenting Victoria price drops (if they occur). Vancouver had(has?) the same, btw.
One Facebook group showing losses would not even begin to balance the amount of cheerleading that occurs when real estate does well, but it’s better than nothing.
Why not introvert? Does it prevent u from bragging about your made up net worth?
Oh god, don’t get Ks112 started again on his obsession with remuneration, job tiers, and hierarchies.
As per the article, New York was digging mass graves even before the pandemic.
A Massachusetts study of sewage (virus particles found) estimates that actual number of people that have been infected in the area tested is 5-45X higher than reported. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241908771.html
If true that would be good news implying lower lethality.
And listing volume.
Just not sure why you’d branch off from here to a FB group predicated on this? I don’t see the value but maybe I am missing something.
Aren’t all BC government employees making over 75k have their names, work titles/dept, salaries posted somewhere online? I don’t have the link now but remembered saw a few IT people there with 100k~ salary. Not sure about their work load, but probably are not 9-10 hours a day 6 days a week like we had in private sector. Yes we earned much higher and can afford to retire early (just before being burned out), but we did save 70% of our earnings when we were working as there was no pension from work.
Sorry for branching away from housing, but this is better than talking Covid …
There’s a housing collapse happening right now – in sales volume. It will take a while to see if this is going to bring about a price collapse, but the former often leads to the latter.
As well collapse is mild term to describe the state of the short-term rental market. That is likely to have wider ramifications as well.
I don’t understand why anyone would join a group that is formed to predict a specific future, as opposed to analyzing what is occurring? Particularly when you have this site which provides regular, reliable information about current conditions? Do you have specific expertise and access to housing data for the facebook group that would add some value?
I’ve been following househuntvictoria for a long time.
I’ve started up a Facebook group called Vancouver Island Housing Collapse.
Anyone who’s interested please join and share your stats, predictions for the housing market.
Where’s that?
I’d take a job there.
Senior developer paid 60-70k? That doesn’t seem right when we pay the admin in my group close to 70k and I work at one of those quasi government entities. Judging from the most recent Vancouver sun salary survey from Feb, our non management senior IT start at around 110k-120k with full db pension etc.
This makes me question the competency level for those taking a similar job at almost half the pay.
So what does the private sector non management senior IT ppl get paid in Victoria? I know couple of tech firm owners in town (20 – 30 ppl firms) and they pay around 80k for a senior software developer without no pension.
New York City digging mass graves.
Still normal for you Local Fool?
Quebec has just closed its borders with other provinces (including at Ottawa where the metro area spans the river), which indicates to me they are not thinking about opening up any time soon.
Not all gov IT jobs can be compared, it’s not apples t apples. Health auth and school districts for example have always had lower pay and anemic unions; out dated job classifications. For instance many still classify all IT jobs as ‘computer operator’. As well, entry level positions with 42k salaries make sense considering experience and skill set. One could not expect 6 figures to answer a phone and create a ticket. However, skilled individuals with experience typically would not work for the likes of school districts or health auth due to the lower pay and boredom factor IMHO.
There are many different gov gigs out there with completely different pay structures and different skills needed. District of N Van, city of N van, Delta, Township of Langley, Translink, Victoria, BCIMC, Ferries, the list is endless and there is no standard of pay between them. I work in a gov IT job, I am still working during Covid , we are obviously busy. Everyone on my team is over 100k and our pensions are worth a lot. We all have over 10-20 yrs experience and low job stress with reasonable hours.
Not all gov jobs offer double time either, I don’t believe they all fall under the same umbrella.
Sounds like Quebec has figured out that about 99% of the covid deaths are people over sixty and that they are thinking about starting up the economy.
https://supchina.com/2020/04/09/more-than-240000-chinese-companies-declare-bankruptcy-in-the-first-two-months-of-2020/
More than 240k Chinese companies declare bankruptcy this year.
James Super said: “A huge portion of many govt jobs is IT. They’re all under paid.
Absolutely the average worker bee IT worker in Victoria makes more than someone in govt.”
A quick Google search shows you ain’t kidding.
BC gov database shows information systems entry level (9?) starts at $42k a year. Ugly.
This ain’t your daddy’s circa 2000 IT boom job market anymore.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/careers-myhr/all-employees/pay-benefits/salaries/salarylookuptool/tma/information-systems?keyword=Information&keyword=systems
So what does a Senior Systems analyst make working for BC govt? Here’s a current job posting for $71k. Yup, that seems totally pathetic compared to the private sector.
https://bcpublicservice.hua.hrsmart.com/hr/ats/Posting/view/68744
“The government itself pays more to contractors doing the exact same job because they can’t fill the positions with hires.”
Now you’ve gone and done it, you’re really ruining a lot of people’s day with all these truths about low public sector pay. That used to be a fave thing for some on here to complain about, now what are they going to do?
Most senior developer jobs I’ve seen in government are like 60-70 range and would blow goats. I used to do government contracting years ago so I know the hell it is. No way I’d go down that low in pay. Been doing this over 20 years.
Maybe 40-50 sales a week is about the bottom? So perhaps 200ish sales for the month in Greater Victoria, maybe another 30 in other parts of the VREB trading area and random sales that get added to the VREB monthly stats.
I didn’t.
A huge portion of many govt jobs is IT. They’re all under paid.
Absolutely the average worker bee IT worker in Victoria makes more than someone in govt. The government itself pays more to contractors doing the exact same job because they can’t fill the positions with hires.
Nope. Tops out at 80k unless you’re working overtime.
Doesn’t public sector IT pay like around 80-120k a year if you are not in a management position? So I guess James makes 240k-360k a year in a private sector IT job. I am gona go out on a limb and say that is not the typical IT job in the private sector in Victoria.
It’s just the nature of any model that involves exponential growth.
A very small change in adherence to social distancing will yield a very large change in the final tally.
Just like investment returns. What you keep after 30 years with 1% lower fees is massively different
Good for you, and you must be young 😉 . I used to work in private IT sector, and my income tax then was about the same or more than income in a public IT position. But as we mature, we eventually realized and appreciate the merits of public jobs: good work life balance and golden pension + health/dental plans in retirement. So the best combination for a couple would be one works in private, one in public.
During today’s BC conference, When was asked about death number in federal model and if BC contributes to it, Dr Henry said, models are theory based and can’t be used for projection, so not very meaningful. BC is different that we use real data as base to project, and is more useful this way, especially considering lots death happened in care homes, can’t be used as general population guideline.
I know that for me taking a public sector IT job would mean making 1/3rd of what I do now and no stock options and a horrible job that I’d hate. The ads for those jobs stay up for months and months.
According to our Canadian Federal Government:
So far today, according to worldometers, Canada has had 509 deaths.
The Feds are also saying we might start gradually returning to normal routines soon, albeit with appropriate social distancing.
Something doesn’t seem right about the ‘official’ projections and statements.
No. If you’re making the monthly payments, you are meeting your side of the contract and they have to meet theirs. Note though that they can ask for their money back at the end of term, and they can ask for a HELOC to be repaid at any time.
But the real question is why would they want to do this if you’re meeting payments? There’s always the possibility of default on any mortgage, but that’s something they want to avoid.
That is my impression as well. Overall prices are up since then but some very bad buys were made in those bidding wars in the hottest regions.
Good to know. The backlog of surgeries will be a big hole to dig out of.
Yes, I think the question was asked about 3 or 4 conferences ago. Dr Henry said it is possible that they could support both, but have to wait for another 10 days or so to be sure. So Hopefully we will know in about a week.
I’m wondering the same. Anyone know if this has been asked of Dix/Henry at one of the press conferences?
James Soper, you took my quote out of context. I referred to the typical union jobs being paid higher in the public sector compared to similar jobs in the private sector. I am not in the IT industry, but does the average worker bee private sector IT worker in Victoria make more than someone in govt after factoring in DB pension and benefits?
I do know for a fact that most lawyers in government get more than private sector in Victoria.
Just saw the update for BC: 132 people in hospital beds… 4th reduction in 4 consecutive days… i think that means we have 4,000+ empty hospital beds. With those numbers, shouldn’t BC open up elective surgeries? So many people in pain waiting for knee/hip replacements… cancer biopsies, etc. And how long do you think BC’ers will tolerate self isolating when there are only 50 people in hospital in the entire province (likely to happen in 2.5 weeks).
Just heard of a young layed-off person who asked mom and dad if he can move back home because he can’t pay his rent and doesn’t want to go into debt.
The longer this shutdown lasts, I suppose more and more young folks will be moving back into the family home.
Good move for the young guy, but if this becomes a trend the landlords will be hurting as young tenants and AirBnB tenants dry-up.
Would not want to be a landlord these days, they were already heavily subsidizing tenants in the hope of gaining equity through appreciation. Both appreciation and rental income have evaporated, and appreciation is heading into negative territory.
Does anyone know if banks can ‘call’ a mortgage if they believe the person is no longer capable of servicing the monthly payments?
“Pretty well every single IT job in govt is a pay cut from the private sector
Except bc pensions, bcimc, bcferries, hydro, translink
Pretty well every single IT job in govt is a pay cut from the private sector.
That’s awesome! Many other grocery stores are too overwhelmed to organize delivery for all. This system keeps it safe for all – their employees and customers.
Value added taxes (e.g. the GST) don’t affect competitiveness, which is why European countries which spend a lot on social programs have a high VAT. Even the UK has a VAT of 20%.
I think it’s inevitable that the GST will be raised back to 7% or higher. Even without the current crisis the need to support a growing elderly cohort would make it likely.
Fleet St is my favourite one. I think I first pointed out that sale — I remember it well: a million bucks for a place literally on McKenzie and a backyard that looked like a mud pit or something.
When Victoria RE is hot, buyers get a little crazy!
[Sellers just rub their hands with glee]
Patriotz said: “We’re supporting them all right. It’s called EI or CREB”
Yes, true they’re getting some support. If it is less money than they used to live on, I wonder how many still won’t be able to pay the rent for several more months. (Hopefully price of new rentals go down with increased vacancy rates, so that renters in trouble can just move to a new cheaper place, partially solving the problem).
“.those of us who are still working are going to be paying for it
But are we really going to be paying for it, or will some future generation? Do you think tax rates will increase in Canada and the rest of the world, to start paying this off, once things settle down?
Or are governments that can get away with it just going to pile up the new debt on top of the old debt just like the Boomers always have? I know we all start paying for new debt right away by way of interest payments on debt (or inflation, somewhere, maybe), but I’m talking about actually paying down the new debt.
Would Canadian or US voters realistically even keep around any government that raise taxes ? Unlikely. I especially don’t see that happening in the US, and if the US doesn’t do that at all its harder for baby competitor Canada to do that.
“On the other hand, if they bought their Victoria property in 2017 or earlier then prices have to go down somewhat before they actually have a net loss compared to purchase price. So, “meh”, they played the real estate game and they’ll be ok.”
From what I remember the first half of 2017 was large amounts of bidding wars full of buyers that were severely overpaying. Current prices here were set during that time with the influx of Vancouver and foreign buyers and this would have been peak price for places like Gordon Head. Not at all scientific but I took a quick look through a few threads on this blog from that time and it is littered with sales that are still not worth 2020 assessments. I’m sure many people got great deals during 2017 and their values are considerably up but a good chunk of those who bought would likely take a loss if they had to sell today.
3957 Fleet St sold 2017 for 1.1 million
2020 assessment 838,000
1493 Eric Rd sold 2017 for 1,113,888
2020 assessment 953,000
1848 San Juan sold 2017 for 850,000
2020 Assessment 818,000
3351 Doncaster sold 2017 for 1.2 million
2020 assessment 1,051,000
3716 Blenkinsop sold 2017 for 851,000
2020 assessment 735,000
1340 George St sold 2017 for 1,085,000
2020 assessment 981,000
789 St. Patrick St sold 2017 for 1,175,000
2020 assessment 1.094,000
4382 Emily Carr Dr sold 2017 for 1.635,000
2020 assessment 1,245,000
2287 Nicklaus Dr sold 2017 1,420,000
2020 assessment 1,242,000
2211 Woodhamptom Rise sold 1,220,000
2020 assessment 1,068,000
1-2632 Mount Stephen Avenue sold 2017 825,000
2020 assessment 730,000
1620 Sarita Pl sold 2017 918,000
2020 assessment 858,000
988 Victoria Avenue sold 2017 1,455,000
2020 assessment 1,187,000
2274 Cranmore sold 2017 959,000
2020 assessment 951,000
1575 Rockland sold 2017 for 2,050,000
2020 assessment 1,856,000
1218 St David St sold 2017 for 1,885,000
2020 assessment 1,537,000
1982 Allenby St sold October 2016 for 996,888
2020 assessment 887000
You probably saw me, then. Had to wait about 20 minutes to get inside the store.
We just passed by there (did takeout from Thai Lemongrass, mmm yummy 🙂 ), there was a long lineup all the way to side of Pepper’s Foods towards beach …
What about unemployed. Not on EI, not on social assistance?
We get zip. Even though I worked at my last job for just over 12 years.
I presume Google just counts the number of cel phones in a given location via gps. Pretty much the same technology that Horgan threatened to use on returning travellers that refuse to self-isolate. I bet that even though they all carry smart phones with geo-location activated, they’ll squawk about privacy rights.
Smartphone location data. Same way they do live traffic
My main grocery store, Pepper’s Foods in Caddy Bay, is barring customers from entering the store starting Monday. Your three choices are:
• Online order + delivery
• Online order + storefront curbside pickup
• Bring ’em your list and they’ll shop for you while you wait in the parking lot
I’ve never ordered online from any grocery store before, but I guess that’s about to change.
There are also many working in the service industry part time whom are now receiving the full CREB, which in some instances significantly increases their pay while sitting at home. I think overall it probably more or less evens out for those in the hospitality industry.
We’re supporting them all right. It’s called EI or CREB, and those of us who are still working are going to be paying for it. Not that I have a problem with that.
Wow I never knew that Google had ‘live’ data of shopping volume. I wonder what they use to measure? In any case, thanks for the info. Leo proving that the internet can be useful from time to time.
Anyone else noticing that the majority of places being listed are vacant or staged? Could just be my price range but I’m looking at the most popular price range in the core.
“Dad, I think the point made regarding public sector workers eating like pigs were mostly directed at the unionized workers. Those are the ones with the most job security and the flex days and high pay in comparison to similar jobs in the private sector (albeit low in the grand scheme of things).”
Meh, I’ve worked in some unionized environments where the workers do very little, and others where the managers are in endless meetings (including meetings about meetings) and the unionized workers do all the “real” work. Public sector managers have pretty good job security too. Even when the Liberals were in power during the last recession, they mostly downsized through attrition and a hiring freeze. I expect that will happen during this recession too.
Anyway, my only point was that in large bureaucratic organizations, public sector or private sector, I would expect there to be bench warmers in the ranks.
Freedom 2008:
Pagliacci’s:
https://www.pagliaccis.ca/#order-delivery-2
Ferris Oyster bar:
https://www.ferrisoysterbar.com/
Jade Fountain:
http://www.jadefountain.ca/
In my limited recent experience with this so far, one is mainly supporting the local owners at this point, who in some cases are stepping into cooking and other roles they haven’t done in a long time while they were managing things. The vast majority of other staff has been cut back drastically.
It’s nice to support even just mostly the local owners, but I wish there was a way to support that huge number of other staff (waiters, etc), many of who were probably living paycheck to paycheck on their salaries.
I consider best bang for my helping-out buck to be locally-owned and operated places, where I know it’s helping out local people fully vested in the business. There’s nothing wrong with national chains(e.g. Moxie’s), but I’m far less concerned about a bunch of owner/executives/stockholders over in Toronto.
Beancounter : More like the “Walking Dead” at Cosco
Maybe this is the time “ask not (only) what your country (others) can do for you – ask (also) what you can do for your country (others)”, me included 😉 .
Costco is doing an excellent job managing the people. Wasn’t too busy last time. Waited outside about 20 min and then got my stuff pretty quickly. Good physical distancing protocols both inside and out. Check Google for live busyness https://goo.gl/maps/mG5o15HLBLYexvnK8
I hope everyone is doing well out there and not doing anything too irrational like buying a house under the current circumstances:) Has anyone been to Costco recently? Just curious what sort of bedlam I’m likely to encounter – Mad Max, Black Friday, or Sunday mass? I might prefer the former for the entertainment spectacle alone.
Dad, I think the point made regarding public sector workers eating like pigs were mostly directed at the unionized workers. Those are the ones with the most job security and the flex days and high pay in comparison to similar jobs in the private sector (albeit low in the grand scheme of things). I heard bc ferries still had cooks on the ships even though no food services were provided, they did so because the other alternatives were to either pay them to sit at home or lay them off (which they did now).
Some local governments are going overboard on this. Closing wide open spaces where it is easy to distance is not the right move right now. Saanich has been good so far. Dr. Henry has said multiple times she is less concerned about parks as long as people aren’t gathering in big groups there.
I believe it is because the Coriolis force acts in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere.
They just closed down the grounds of government house which is just about the only park in the Rockland area where mostly old people were able to safely go for a walk. Nothing like trying to make things harder on people.
Incubate… hehe
Colorized picture featuring the bottom of Yates street looking south west. July 1871. One of the buildings in the picture is still standing, too! Can you see which one it is?
The former
We (not related with any business) participate in this activity to support local businesses:
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/food-and-drink/national-takeout-day-canada-restaurants-2240039
Here are some local restaurants near us that are open for takeout/delivery:
1550’s Pub Style Restaurant: 250-472-0047
Thai Lemongrass: 250-385-3838
Oregano’s Pizza: 250-590-2223
Tropical Island Restaurant: 250-477-2438
Purple Garden Chinese Restaurant: 250-477-8820
Could you add in other local restaurants open in great Victoria area? Let us do this if you can, and not only on April 15th. Thanks.
“Let’s not go down that particular tangent please”
The sexism/mansplaining one, or the public vs. private sector one?
Let’s not go down that particular tangent please
“Sigh… so much anger (read jealousy) for those who provide a public service. Because only those in the private sector truly work and keep things going am I correct Matthew?”
I imagine the head offices of many large corporations are just as bloated as any other bureaucracy, with lots of “analyst” type positions with job descriptions containing the phrase “and other duties as required.”
Maybe he’s one of those people that thinks if you are being paid to work, then you’d better be working every single second (or at least appear to be) of your shift except during your two fifteens and lunch break.
Old attitudes I guess.
because sexism is okay as long as it’s coming from a woman.
Meanwhile, in Alberta, Premier Kenney took over for Dr. Hinshaw, Alberta’s PHO, at their daily press conference yesterday, and I gather from Twitter that people didn’t like that — possibly in part because of the #mansplaining, possibly in part because Kenney said “incubate” instead of “intubate.”
Comic break time.
By the way, government employs a lot of scientists as well… are they eating from the trough as well?
Sigh… so much anger (read jealousy) for those who provide a public service. Because only those in the private sector truly work and keep things going am I correct Matthew?
Granted, and I have said this before, there is most definitely fat that needs to be trimmed in government. That being said, who do you think is implementing and executing the CERB and EI benefits? Who ensures laws and regulations are enacted, put into place, and abided by? Who provides for public safety, or health care, or infrastructure that everyone utilizes? Who provides justice or correctional services? Who is going to defend the nation or monitor the coasts and the artic? Who is going to ensure you get your CPP and OAS (if applicable) when you get to the qualifying age?
I get you might be in a situation that is extremely unfavourable. I hope things work out for you. But to broad brush and bash a whole cohort of people because you might know of a couple people that work for the government and you don’t think they do much compared to you is pretty ignorant. Perhaps just put a heart up in your window and say thank you to those putting themselves on the front line of this pandemic instead of trying to divide people because of a perceived unfairness.
Worldometer has added “continent” tabs so you can list Europe or Asia etc.
In the world, there have been 88K deaths.
The northern hemisphere continents show 86K deaths. (Europe, Asia, N. America)
The three Southern Hemisphere continents (s. America, Oceania, Africa) show 2K deaths. Every Southern Hemisphere country (except Ecuador which is right on the equator) has a death rate per million less than the global average (11/m). this includes Countries like South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, all African and South American countries etc.
Southern Hemisphere is 11% of the world population, but only 2/88= 2.3% of the deaths. A death rate 11/2.3= 4.8X higher in the northern vs southern continent. There could be many explanations for this (e.g delayed spread, huge spread in Europe), but one is that there is some seasonality to the virus.
Bring on the summer!
The trouble is, we really have no idea what things will be like for us 75 days from now.
Using Wuhan to inform our guesses isn’t appropriate for at least two reasons: China locked itself down to an extent impossible for Canada, and stats coming out of China can never be trusted.
There’s always a lucky someone who gets out at exactly the right time. This deal closed March 31.
31 offers for Burnaby house shows a market on the rebound – before COVID-19
Mathew: We can both agree that we have to start to get the economy moving again in the next few months. But we also have to continue flattening the curve or our hospital system will be over run. Mass pandemic outbreaks are not great for tourism either.
The realty is that tourism is not going to recover any time soon, not this summer and not next year either in all likelihood. For years we have been far too dependent on the export of raw materials and tourism while letting the manufacturing sector be devastated by globalism. In the short run over the next six months a lot of people will have to live on government cheques. Some industries like tourism will take years to recouver and there will be lots of casualties of businesses over that period of time.
Frankly I really believe that we need to completely redefine our national manufacturing strategy but I am pretty confidant that we wont do that until things get much worse.
This is going to screw up the Y axis on economic charts for decades
https://twitter.com/benrabidoux/status/1248229728714133508?s=21
Patriotz said: “As Leo S pointed out, most people who don’t have to sell are just going to buy another property, so it does make sense for them to wait for more normal times.”
I’m not sure it’s accurate that most people who are ready to sell (but don’t have to) are planning to upsize. Probably good thing is to outline various seller scenarios for the current climate:
(1) Investment property owner with poor cash flow: should lean towards selling sooner.
(2) principal home owner planning to upsize to higher value property: should lean towards waiting. Stable or even lower prices mean savings when you trade up for a bigger home.
(3) principal home owner planning to downsize to less expensive property, or get out of owning entirely (e.g. as they are older now): should lean towards selling sooner. Lower prices mean losing money when you trade down for a smaller value home, or leave the owner’s market entirely.
(4) Divorces, estate sales:
Should lean towards selling sooner, for obvious reasons. Also, recipients of these proceeds are generally not patient.
What category of people ready-to-sell have I left out?
So, people in 1 of the 4 categories above should wait to sell. Especially in Victoria, with its large population of retirees, there is perpetually a sizable proportion of ready-to-sell in category (3).
I don’t buy the idea one person shouldnt try to sell because they want to avoid a collective rush to sell. Thats a huge game theory gamble, placing a huge amount of trust that most others out there aren’t greedy and won’t try to get out before being locked in to losses. Spoiler: Many people are greedy and think with a “every man for himself” mentality when it comes to life savings and large investments.
Waiting patiently could end up being rewarded with further losses when others don’t wait, or when prices inevitably fall. Best case short term scenario in the current environment, waiting patiently can let you sell later at the same price as now. So why wait
As Leo S pointed out, most people who don’t have to sell are just going to buy another property, so it does make sense for them to wait for more normal times.
A bit different for those holding investment properties with poor cash flow. They are the ones who really should get out, but if they rush to the exits they will crater prices given current market volumes.
Matthew:
I applaud brainstorming, and believe in throwing all sorts of ideas at the wall to see what will stick. Not everything can stick to the wall, some will fall flat. That’s okay, because that’s what brainstorming is supposed to be about! “He who dares, wins”, and all that. (If you ever wonder why some Japanese ventures become so successful, don’t forget Japan is famous for trying all kinds of ideas everyone else thinks is unexpected/zany at first… Often it does fall flat, and people mock the attempt. But sometimes it’s wildly successful. Success and not-quite-successful attempts go hand in hand! But I digress)
Don’t worry about others’ blunt criticism of any well intended brainstorming. I say, we should all keep the brainstorming going.
Did you see my idea below about a summer-long combination of “be a tourist in your own town” and “dining around town”? Those are popular annual local traditions for the pre-tourism time of year, keeping tourist businesses busy with local.money. I say combine those two things for the entire summer, and put them on steroids — with ample covid-19 precautions in play, of course.
CBC News: “Canadian real estate markets hit hard by pandemic”. “Lower prices predicted”
..
“[Vancouver real estate agent] Hutchison is worried values will fall…”We don’t know where prices are going to go. I mean, why would you buy something now if you perceive prices are going to go down in the future, which may very well be.”
…
An April 3 report by RBC predicts housing sales could fall to a 20-year low, dropping 30 per cent over the coming year, and prices will indeed go down, in the short term at least.
With millions of people suddenly turning to financial aid from the government, personal finances that looked healthy a few months ago are suddenly shrouded in doubt.”
…
“some clients are wondering if they have to close on deals made before the pandemic. He has to tell them that, under the law, a deal is still a deal.”
…
[Calgary real estate agent]: “Not everybody needs to sell right now, and if you don’t need to sell, we’re telling our clients hold off until things settle down a bit.”
RBC’s Hogue says Calgary is in a tough spot. “We believe property values are at risk of a more sizable decline.”
( https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canadian-real-estate-markets-hit-hard-by-pandemic-1.5525681)
Aw, poor Calgary real estate agent! Her sole Pollyanna tone in the article reminds me of those old Sesame Street clips where “One of these kids is doing their own thing”.
Okay, so let me get this straight. The Titanic just hit an iceberg a couple of minutes ago, and water is starting to rush in. Various ship integrity engineers are telling everyone they that the boat has a realistic risk of sinking (even though many fans of the Titanic had previously sworn it would never be possible) . Best case scenario, they say, the Titanic sure as heck ain’t going anywhere for quite a while.
Meanwhile, the ship’s PR Liaison (I.e. some real estate agents) are telling everybody to calm down until the ocean water gushing in settles down a bit. “Go relax, have a drink in the bar where some great music is playing, and wait this out.”. After all, a panic exit of passengers from the boat would be bad for their future business! (Also meanwhile, a few people are still boarding the boat at full regular fare price, but that’s another story)
Sounds legit.
People that are ready to sell, ask yourselves: as a passenger on the Titanic, how could listening to the ship’s PR Liaison and ignoring the integrity engineers’ advice possibly go wrong for you?
Barrister: it may be easy for an older gentlemen such as yourself who receives OAS and CPP each and every month, to call someone “stupid” for wanting to talk about ways to get the economy back up and running when its safe to do so.
Patriotz: it’s easy for a fool such as yourself to call someone a “comedian” when I am offering possible solutions to the problem, and you are offering nothing but worthless criticism.
For those of us who are not eating free at the Government trough, for those of us who are actually trying to think of answers, for those who must work for a living, for those who are raising children and paying for all of their expenses, well, we are interested in finding a solution to our economic problems as soon as possible, including getting Victoria tourism back up and running, if we can find a safe way to do it.
If your suggestion is that we should all sit in our basements and do nothing for 1.5 years until the vaccine comes out, then you are dreaming. There will be roving bands of criminals banging down your door looking for food and money by Halloween, if we do not do something to re-start the economy as soon as practicable.
My suggestion was for limited RV tourism STARTING GRADUALLY in 2.5 months from now on June 21st (which is 75 full days from now). I am willing to bet you that all of Western Canada will have beat Covid 19 almost completely to the ground by then. The problem will definitely be manageable by summertime, without doubt. All we have to do from there is control any outbreaks for a period of time until the vaccine becomes available. Anybody with half a brain can see what’s going on in Wuhan, China today. After only a two-month shutdown, they are cautiously getting back to work. They have already demonstrated where this is going for us. So, if we keep the doors shuttered for the next two months or so (like Wuhan did) we can get back to work just like they are doing now. We can have some form of safe tourism by this summer, if we are smart about it. We have already been in lockdown for close to a month, and the results are starting to show.
Older people will obviously have to be very careful for the foreseeable future. They should absolutely not venture anywhere downtown for the next year. Just stay close to home. If you go anywhere in public, wear a mask, and stay six feet away from other people. If you go shopping, do it early in morning when it’s quiet. The rest of us must follow all the health authority directives. Presently, everyone should stay home as much as possible. But that direction will change by June.
By June 21st, I believe that our Gov’t health authorities will be in a position to administer a simple 15-minute Covid test on every single person in Canada.
Vancouver Island can take full advantage of this. Just like New Zealand, we can say absolutely no-one comes to the island unless they first pass a Covid test (administered within the previous 24 hours) proving they are virus free. They MUST produce a certificate when attempting to board any plane or ferry coming to the island. Also, they have to be tested each week they are here. My point is there are many things we can do to have some tourism and at the same time, keep it safe.
Also, many thousands of people will have recovered from Covid 19 by summertime. They will be immune and incapable of spreading the disease. A simple test of them will show the antibodies proving that they are immune. They too can obtain a certificate proving they are safe.
So why wouldn’t Victoria want these kinds of people coming to island in their RVs for a nice visit? Please explain. Or do you just want to sit in your basement for the next year and stave to death because there is no economy?
In conclusion, I’m getting a little tired of all the naysayers on this site who have absolutely no optimism about the future, no belief in the strength and vitality of the human spirit, nothing to offer in terms of exploring solutions to our economic problems, and no faith or confidence in our scientists who are working day and night to slay this dragon to ground as soon as possible. The pandemic and the economic shutdown are BOTH equally very serious threats. We must address both of them in order to get back to normal life. Staying inside and hiding for the next year and refusing to look at possible solutions is no answer.
Marko said: “Unless health or ridicolously bad luck related I don’t feel sorry for people. People have been living large on credit for the last decade and not planning for rainy days like this.”
For me, there are varying degrees of sympathy.
Back in 2008, when a whole lot of people in the U.S. ended up being foreclosed on, I had no sympathy for most of them.
First of all, they weren’t ending up on the street. If they could afford to qualify for a mortgage before the higher mortgage payments kicked in, they could certainly afford to pay rent, which is what they should have stayed doing in the first place.
Second, they often had very little equity in the home, it was never their homes to begin with, it was mostly indirectly the bank’s property. Why should I be sad that somebody got kicked out of the bank’s house, whilst cautious renters never had the luxury to live in such houses to begin with? (We need a more accurate term than “home owner” when the person with the mortgage only has a small fraction of equity in the home, but I digress). A little upfront math would have showed those 2008 U.S. borrowers that they were getting themselves into more than they possibly could have hoped to afford when automatic higher mortgage payments kicked in (as stated clearly in their contracts!) and values stopped rising.
They got free rent for a year or two, and gambled mostly with the bank’s money, while stupidly piling into a frenzy that they weren’t qualified for, only made prices higher for everybody else while helping to crash the entire economy. They got a “nice going, dumbass” from me, not sympathy.
Whether or not I sympathize for people forced to sell or foreclose due to covid-19 is more nuanced. On the one hand, even a few prudent people with three months of emergency savings might not have been prudent enough, depending on their situation/profession. Who here ever heard financial advice to keep a year’s worth of emergency liquid savings tucked away in case of a pandemic?
On the other hand, if they bought their Victoria property in 2017 or earlier then prices have to go down somewhat before they actually have a net loss compared to purchase price. So, “meh”, they played the real estate game and they’ll be ok. (If they HELOC’d the heck of of their home, no sympathy either)
But I will have most sympathy if: they bought in 2018 or sooner, didn’t exagerrate or pull tricks for their mortgage, didn’t treat their home like a HELOC bank machine, have run out of a prudent 3+ months of emergency savings, and don’t have money to rent after being foreclosed. I’m optimistic that government payouts are helping this to be incredibly rare.
“I’m really struggling to run for 10 or 15 minutes at a time.”
She’s concerned about long-term lung damage from the virus.
TIL I have lung damage.
BC Assessment is going to have a heck of a hard time with their valuations this year if there’s hardly any comparable sales
It’s sad that they can’t even test obvious people.
But man, BC’s numbers are great.
Looks like they’re going to start testing the public again.
45 new cases, 5 new deaths. One person died quarantining at home.
Glad you liked them. I have dozens more. 🙂
The additional measures they are talking about will apply to people returning from other countries not to Albertans visiting BC, or British Columbians returning from AB. Here is the press release: https://news.gov.bc.ca/21978
Looks like starting Friday if you arrive at YVR from outside of the country or at a major land border crossing you will have to have a self isolation plan and there will actually be a provincial person there checking.
I will be interested to see if this amounts to more than the nothingburger screening we experienced coming back to Canada.
‘So easy I thought it was fake’: CRA’s CERB system gets stellar reviews in first days of operation
https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/so-easy-i-thought-it-was-fake-cras-cerb-system-gets-stellar-reviews-in-first-days-of-operation
Thanks for the photos Local Fool!
Funny, in the 1860s one, the area now known as dockside green was actually green
For anyone downplaying the severity of the crisis, or of the virus:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/coronavirus-nyc-hospital-icu.html
Yup. Up to everyone to do the right thing here. My impression from the talk today though is that more involved procedure may be coming still and not in place yet.
Himalayas visible for first time in 30 years as pollution levels in India drop
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/audio/himalayas-visible-for-first-time-in-30-years-as-pollution-levels-in-india-drop?cid=lang%3Asocialshare%3Afacebook&fbclid=IwAR0XMx67M5-Zd04LctcvfHyhnX3KXo6NI7apgNFiEZvM6OwQRCbDaXeQCwg
Thank you Leo; it will hopefully be positive results.
Barrister, a few days ago you wondered whether or not a person would acquire immunity after recovering from a COVID-19 infection.
It seems every COVID research group is rushing to try covid antibody plasma trials. This involves recovered patients donating their blood, the blood being refined, blood plasma with antibodies being extracted, then the plasma with antibodies being injected into other people. The goal is two-fold; first to determine if the antibodies will help sick people recover faster, and secondly to determine if someone who has never had COVID-19 will gain immunity from someone else’s antibodies.
If this works then it also establishes that a person who has recovered from COVID-19 has immunity from re-infection. The longevity of the immunity (if immunity exists) will also be studied.
Search google with these words:
covid antibody plasma trials
Then read the Google News stories. Looks promising.
There’s no enforcement of quarantines. There’s a couple in the Cowichan Valley who refuse to quarantine after coming back from Thailand and they’ve been given a stern warning and sent on their way with no consequences. Nothing will happen to anyone who doesn’t follow the rules which is why I’m not bothering. We cured it in BC and there’s no new cases on the island and none around here.
Bill Gates discussing a roadmap to get back to normal. Testing/therapeutics and a vaccine by fall 2021…
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/bill-gates-how-long-it-may-take-before-americans-are-safe-from-coronavirus.html
“It might not be until fall 2021 that Americans “can be completely safe” from COVID-19, Bill Gates said in a Tuesday interview with Judy Woodruff on PBS Newshour.
That’s because it will take more than a year before a vaccine can be developed and deployed, according to researchers working to develop a treatment for COVID-19.
“The vaccine is critical, because, until you have that, things aren’t really going to be normal,” the billionaire philanthropist told Woodruff. “They can open up to some degree, but the risk of a rebound will be there until we have very broad vaccination.”
“testing for #Covid needs to be made far more available, adds “In parallel, we have to go as fast as we can on therapeutics, and as fast as we can on a vaccine” estimating some therapeutics could be available in 3-6 months”
There’s 2 main ways into BC from Alberta.
Highway 16 & Highway 1. They could probably get 90% by doing highway 93 and highway 3 as well. They could just ask Dawson Creek locals who travelled haha.
The problem with these aggressive self isolation measures (for travelers) being announced is that there doesn’t seem to be much follow through due to perhaps lack of staff and lack of organization. We recently returned by air from abroad. According to the announcements from the government we should have had some basic health screening, we should have been questioned on our self isolation plans, and we should have also had to give contact information so that the government could follow up and verify/enforce our self isolation.
Reality was a stressed out young guy in protective gear handed us a glossy sheet of paper (on arrival in YYZ) with a bit of self isolation information and a link to more guidelines. We are following the self isolation guidelines but there would have been no consequences for us if we didn’t. In relation to the notice Introvert posted. I can’t imagine that BC government will be at all the border crossings ready to quarantine returning travellers this weekend. So there’s an element of theater to these announcements.
The other problem with measures targeting returning travellers is that they will be increasingly irrelevant as more and more cases are do to community spread. For the time being the existing measures on travellers do make sense. At least some of these returning travelers will be coming from places where COVID-19 is more prevalent than Canada .
I like to live small, carry no debt but the mortgage, and have an emergency fund. That’s old school, bitches.
I can’t comment on individual listings especially if it isn’t something positive.
Unless health or ridicolously bad luck related I don’t feel sorry for people. People have been living large on credit for the last decade and not planning for rainy days like this.
See under section 4.13:
https://www.oakbay.ca/sites/default/files/municipal-services/bylaws/Consolidated%20Zoning%20Bylaw%20as%20of%20May%208%202017.pdf
So why pick now to put it up for sale? Looks to me there is some financial distress behind this.
Why feel sorry for them?
I’d be interested in Marko’s take on 4221 Springridge pricing. It is more than double assessment, but assessed is pre-renovation as a dated 1960s house with only 4 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Now it is fully updated inside and out, has a licensed home hair salon, a suite, and a total of 7 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.
Hairdressing income would be, but that is not forever and self-employed people qualify for CERB. A suite can always be rented out monthly, so if vacant this is likely because it makes sense to have it so for showing.
“Oak Bay is permitting RVs in driveways while covid remains a threat.”
Are you actually not allowed to park an RV on your driveway in Oak Bay normally?
Got to feel sorry for this person but IMO they have vastly overpriced their home.
Includes 2 BR “Airbnb” suite that grosses 2.6-5k/month(wow, people really pay that much for a small basement Airbnb?) & a hair salon studio. Sadly both of those incomes are likely $0 at the moment.
4221 Springridge Crescent
$1.5 Million
Assessed at $761k
You do get 14 parking spots though…
The same shot as below, colorized, 38 years later (1922).
West facing view of the City of Victoria, colorized, 1884. The north/south foreground road in front of the houses is where Blanshard St would eventually be, and the connecting perpendicular road heading west is Burdett St. A modern view of the road system reveals a similar placement of the road configuration to today.
West facing view of Victoria Harbor, colorized, 1860s. For reference, the teardrop-shaped outcropping on the left is roughly where the Laurel Point Inn now stands.
Douglas and Yates, colorized, 1890. Note the building on the left, which is still standing today.
Building the Inner Harbor causeway, colorized, 1902
Oak Bay is permitting RVs in driveways while covid remains a threat.
If they do go for your RVs in the city Mathew, we could let them all park in the uplands. Lots of free space there for them to park.
https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1247155576221716480
That puts New York State at likely at over a thousand people a day.
2.5 times the normal death rate from everything.
There is just no way tourist season is going to be a thing this summer in Victoria imo. How could it? Who is going to want to travel and why would we want to increase our transmission rates at this point? The focus should be on control and then cautious limited reactivation – we aren’t going back to normal for the foreseeable future.
On a potentially positive note, Denmark is planning to reopen kindergartens and primary schools this month. If this is successful they will next move to reopening restaurants and hairdressers. Denmark closed its borders very early and has been able to stabilize its transmission rates, at least for now.
On a more concerning note, 51 people who had previously been deemed as recovered in Korea have tested as positive again. China has previously warned this can happen and that the second reinfection can be more serious. Korean scientists seem to believe that it is a reactivation of a dormant infection which is very troubling, but less troubling than the idea of reinfection.
Yes, and yes. Not sure about the rest or why.
Yep, which wouldn’t otherwise be notable if it wasn’t 6 days on market. High end has been grinding down for some time, but usually it happens over months. Like the place up in cowichan bay for $1.45M from original ask of $1.8M but over 11 months. Winning bid $200k under ask, which I take as evidence of people no longer content to wait it out.
That $1.75 one that sold for $1.65? 🙂
17% of properties (8/47) still went over ask last week.
But also some bigger under asks. Condo in james bay for $123k under ask.
House in Saanich East for $100k under ask 6 days on market.
Those bigger under asks are happening in higher end though. Haven’t seen any big ones in the more mainstream price bands.
Median property selling for 5% over last year’s assessment (valuation as of July 1, 2018).
Yeah good point. We’ve tried to get more takeout during this to support some restaurants but surely many will close. On the plus side after this it will likely be a good time to start a restaurant with gaps in the market and lots of staff available.
Hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but there is a pretty good chance that they will not come up with a vaccine for this in the next year or the next five years. While we can hope for the best we really need to get our collective heads out of our behinds and start planning for the alternative.
Sorry, got rather triggered by Mathews joyous plan on how to bring more infected people onto the island in hordes of RVs. It amazes me that in spite of how much has been written about the spread of viruses in the last few weeks that there is a seemingly endless number of stupid people who simply refuse to accept the reality of the situation.
Somehow we got extremely lucky so far and we have had an unbelievably low rate of infection on the island. If we had half a brain we would put the island under strick quarantine to prevent the spread of the virus. Only essential workers either on or off. Listening to an ambulance in the distance.
You know, with talent like yours, Victoria ought to set up a Comedy Festival. It would be a great draw for the kind of tourist who would go for BC’s other attractions.
But not this year.
IMO, we will likely lose many mom and pop restaurants, because the restaurant business have a very thin profit margin that required volume to stay in business.
add: perhaps we could take a step further and add a flower fest in the summer to dovetail with the annual spring flower count, and maybe a colour festival as well as a war & peace music festival to round out the summer/fall.
IMO, tourism is completely dead for this year and perhaps next few years if there is a second wave of coronavirus in the fall. And, all the power to you if you can convince the Victoria/Saanich councils, and the eco activists to think about the economy and put others first over their ideology, because to them motorize vehicle and specially environmentally repugnant RVs take up their precious bicycle lanes and air space.
I think it will take a few years for tourists to come back to Victoria, and perhaps we need to put more into promote inexpensive festivals such as music fest, folkfest, lantern fest, dragon boat fest, moon fest, etc…
Also insured mortgages are a bit cheaper
Now that there is a sign of hope (with ZERO new cases on Vancouver Island today) my question is: What practical things could Victoria do to try and have a tourist season this year? As you know, people love to come to Victoria for vacation. They love to come see the Ocean. It’s probably Victoria’s greatest gift. Obviously, we are going to completely lose the spring tourist season. But, the busiest time of year is the summer season. The good news is that’s still 2.5 months away. And we could extend it this year as long into the fall as possible. So, how about we get creative and we come up with some ideas to try and etch out a summer/fall tourist season?
Here’s mine. Make the whole city super RV friendly. That is to say, we allow visitors to come, but we encourage them to come in RVs. We actually spend some money advertising this idea to all of western Canada. “Come to Victoria this summer in your RV. Enjoy your vacation with as much physical separation as possible”.
Offer free RV parking in all the Malls, at Beacon Hill Park, maybe alongside Dallas Road and Beach Drive, at Thetis Lake, Elk Lake, and in other places. Make it free parking anywhere in the city.
Limit the number of RV vehicles in any one place or area. In this way, tourists can still come to Victoria this summer and fall, but at the same time, each family has their space.
We could actually do things like limit the number of people that can stay in the hotels. Have a rule that all hotel meals must be served in the rooms.
For the water taxis, allow just one family at a time.
No more than 2 or 3 people on a horse & carriage ride.
Sorry, but no US tourists (until their Covid numbers come way down).
No cruise ships either (until next year and that’s only if they figure out how to make them way more safe).
Only three or four people in a smaller stores (like Rogers Chocolates) at once.
You can come to the island (as a tourist) on the ferries, but you have to stay in your vehicle during the boat ride (which is exactly the opposite of they’ve been allowing before).
You have to wear a mask in public.
Install warm water taps and sinks in strategic places on tourist streets. Have soap available.
Meals can be prepared by all the great Victoria restaurants, but for take-out only.
Put up a bunch of picnic tables all over the place where tourists can sit and have supper and at the same time enjoy some physical distancing.
Physical distancing would still be paramount in every respect. It’s just a matter of adapting and adjusting to the new reality (until they come up with a vaccine in about a year).
People would have to find places to explore other than just Government Street and the Causeway. Example: nature walks, Sooke Pot Holes, China Beach, and other out of the way places.
I realize this idea is not perfect by any stretch, and places like Butchart Gardens are probably gonna have to sit this season out (unless they are willing to drastically reduce the daily number of visitors), but it may be a partial answer to Victoria’s upcoming tourism problem.
Can you think of any other ideas to help?
Really small mortgages don’t get the best rates in my limited experience. My last mortgage renewal was for a relatively small amount (but still more than I could just pay off) that was a small fraction of assessed value. I talked to two brokers. I ended up getting a decent rate but both brokers said I could have gotten a rate several points better if my mortgage had been double or triple the size. The way it was explained to me is that there are certain administrative costs that are the same whether the mortgage is 90K or 900K. To cover those costs and still show reasonable profits the rates on small mortgages end up several points higher.
Totoro said: “I have been offered 2.1% for five years for my renewal.”
Phenomenal, was that offered in the last week or so, and was it for a place in Victoria? I don’t know how RateSpy gets their info, but it differs not only by province but also city.
Do you think that 2.1 was a publicly offered rate, or that you got special treatment? Perhaps your renewal is very small compared to your market value, or you’re a longterm/respected customer who has earned more trust than a newcomer might have?
Or, perhaps RateSpy doesn’t always find out all the best publicly offered rates?
Leo S –
If I were part of the Victoria Tourism Association, I would be pitching a one-of-a-kind summer-long local tourism blitz , to bring locals to the bigger attractions and restaurants (because it’s unlikely we’ll have the numbers of outside visitors we usually have).
Think “Be a tourist in your own town” combined with “Dine Around Town”, for the entire summer, along with relevant covid-19 precautions. This might get some more locals venture out more, and help prop up the local economy, if only a bit more for the summer.
Mass participation sporting events.
First thing that will come back will likely be cruise ships followed by our non stop flights to NYC.
My dentist’s office just re-booked me for early August (I had been scheduled for next week). I don’t get cavities (never had one in my life), but boy will my hygienist get a workout scraping my teeth when I finally see her. I should bring her flowers.
Yeah it’ll be interesting to see what comes back immediately when it’s allowed and what takes longer.
Barbers and salons I think will be back to business pretty quickly. Mostly local business there.
Restaurants likely as well at 50% capacity with every other table empty.
Open houses… I bet the virtual open houses will persist for a while with private showings for serious buyers. Open houses could still work with some traffic control measures, not that those are necessary in this market.
Construction should be back pretty quick with some basic precautionary measures.
Dentistry.. Well I hate the dentist at the best of times so this won’t help. Certainly many people will be pushing out their checkups.
Tourist season is basically completely dead for the year. I can’t imagine that coming back this summer at all.
Big concerts and events I think will still be mostly cancelled.
What else will take a long time to come back once the restrictions are lifted?
With the virus still around, we won’t be getting anywhere near 100% normal, regardless of what the government allowed. Who’se going to the dentist, barber, restaurant, open houses etc. where they can get the virus? Those are likely a write off until a vaccine or solid treatment emerges.
btw) Dr, Bonnie Henry and Adrian Dix are A+ in my books. BC is fortunate to have them.
I have been offered 2.1% for five years for my renewal.
Was thinking about that the other night when I plugged in.
Oh wow, I just checked out the “best” mortgage rates specific to Victoria, according to RateSpy.
The best 5 year fixed rate is a single bank (Island Savings) offering 2.74% mortgage.
The closest next one Tangerine offers 2.89% for 5 year fixed.
After that, just keep going higher.
For variable 5 year in Victoria, best is one bank offering 2.3%, and after that 2.4% and up.
Only a couple of weeks ago I was commenting here that the best 5 year fixed rate available had risen to an unexpectedly high 2.49%, and that a couple of weeks before that Victoria rates were quite lower.
I hope anybody planning to borrow and buy a home soon had the lowest rate locked in for as long as they could. That of course brings up a dillema: buy with a great fixed rate before the 90 or 120 days is up, or wait to buy later at possibly a worse fixed rate?
How much borrowing power has the typical buyer lost in just the last month, and what does that mean for what they can afford to pay for a home (and ergo market prices)? I have to go look up Leo S’ analysis of affordability (borrowing power) in relation to mortgage rate movements…
I wonder how long fixed rates can move in the opposite direction of bank of Canada’s slashed rates (I know, that’s up to investors).
And, how high can fixed 5 year rates go during this crisis? How high did they get back in 2008?
Justin McElroy has done a great job covering BC situation
https://twitter.com/j_mcelroy/status/1247654503425417229?s=20
Bonnie Henry reminding people that we’re not going back to 100% “normal” anytime soon.
“We’re in for a bit of a ride.”
Think of it this way: right now, we’re at, like, 20% normal.
If things keep going well, we can go up to 60 or 70% normal.
At least at first.
Nice. Coronavirus just one more reason to go electric. The air gets cleaner which reduces suscetibility to respiratory viruses, and you don’t have to touch any dirty gas station nozzles.
Well now some lenders are taking into account CERB payments, so you don’t even need a job anymore!
I’ve been very impressed by the lack of partisan bullshit in Canada. We are doing well here with working together.
It would be more accurate to say “Two or three weeks ago, there were 250 new Covid infections. We have no idea how many people got infected today; we won’t know anything for weeks.”
Matthew said, “the BC economy will be one of the first in North America to (gradually) re-start and get back to normal”
I hope you’re right, but If by “normal” you mean like things were before this all started, I’m afraid several experts have some bad news for you.
Dr. Fauci:’If you want to get to pre-coronavirus, that might not ever happen in the sense of the fact that the threat is there.’ (i.e. until there’s a vaccine)
Ali Nouri, President of the Federation of American Scientists: “there is not going to be a time when there is a magic date and then everybody goes back to their lives as normal. That’s not going to happen for a long time.
…
‘Once June comes around, once July comes around, it’s not going to be the kind of situation where people are going to be going to crowded restaurants and movie theaters. Things are going to be different, I suspect, until we have the vaccine.'”
Please put up your hand if you are willing to risk taking your family to a movie theatre, restaurant, or travelling to any hotel or AirBnB between now and when a vaccine comes out next year. Do you think many people will risk that for their children, elderly family members, and themselves?
Let’s hope that both of these experts are over-exagerrating, just plain wrong, and for example, that somehow a whopping 80 percent of regular business returns to Victoria’s tourism sector by this July and August. That sounds unlikely (while we’re in the thick of it) without a vaccine fully rolled out to everyone, but let’s take that very optimistic scenario as an example.
That would still be a brutal 20% cut in normal income during the “bumper crop” summer months (when most of the yearly income is made) for untold numbers of restaurants, tourism-dependant businesses, theatres, etc.. and that is on top of the couple of current months that those businesses have already been entirely shot down.
I feel bad for the families of people that make a living in those businesses in Victoria (and anywhere). For them, I can’t see things in Victoria getting back to normal until next year — unless a vaccine is ready and rolled out within the next couple of months, which is very unlikely by every indication.
I think we will soonish all carefully resume doing some things locally, getting haircuts, going for coffee, going to physiotherapist… but less than before, and not everything we used to do. Especially, i can’t see nearly as many people wanting to travel overnight until a vaccine is rolled out.
Yes, and we got a little lucky – but I’m so grateful that we are where we are at the moment.
Ontario is projecting 3,000 to 15,000 deaths under current restrictions. The US has 23 times the population. Assuming the US does as good a job as Ontario (which I doubt), that projection would scale from 69,000 to 345,000. At present the US has recorded about 34 times the number of deaths as Canada.
Sounds like we’ve cured it folks. You missed out again bears. BC is truly the best place on earth.
NEWS FLASH: Today, Dr. Bonnie Henry said there was a total of 25 new Covid cases in British Columbia. ZERO on Vancouver Island. If we keep up the physical distancing, good hygiene, and mask wearing in public, until the health authorities say when, the BC economy will be one of the first in North America to (gradually) re-start and get back to normal. Of course, we will have to monitor the situation like a hawk (and act accordingly) until the vaccine is ready in about a year.
This is what you get when society bands together and makes sacrifices.
Honestly, until NYC is getting less cases per day, and less than 50% of people actually testing negative, I don’t think things are going down there.
If their actual peak in number deaths ends up being 3000 or so, based on how long it’s taken Italy to go from peak to 2/3rds of peak, you’re still looking at almost 2000 deaths 2 weeks later. If that’s the case, you could see 60 thousand deaths before the end of the month in the US. They’re nearly at 13 thousand now.
So really it’s just how long does it take to go from 2000 deaths a day to 0. It took China 43 days to go from 150 daily to 0. 739 people died in that period, or 22% of the total (28.5% of the total they were at when they last had 150).
They shouldn’t really be that far off 100 thousand if their peak ends up being 3000 deaths daily.
Count on it.
Remember the 100k-240k estimate of US deaths coming from covid-19, reported last week?
CNN reports that, “A source close to the task force said it’s possible the eventual death toll will be “way under” the 100,000-to-240,000 figure”
…
“A key factor driving the large estimate was a crucial assumption, discussed (only) internally by task force officials, that only 50% of Americans would observe the government’s stringent social distancing guidelines, the source said. That calculation was not shared widely. In reality, a much larger number — 90% — is observing the government’s guidelines”
However, you will recall that originally the estimates were already said to have assumed a high degree of social distancing taking place.
As I mentioned last week too, I wonder if a deliberate overly high original estimation was in part a political/sociological stunt, so that if(when) US deaths don’t even come close to that, (a) the US will have a national “victory” to celebrate, and (b) Trump will endlessly take credit for personally having saved every every single one of those tens of thousands of people that “should have” but didn’t die
Roaring twenties was after WWI as well.
The bills Canadians are potentially not able to pay
https://www.ratespy.com/daily-mortgage-update-april-6-040613043
Did you mention the stock market? An exogenous, transient, non-financial, non-systemic event has caused a 35% downward adjustment. Is it time to buy? As is often the case, Warren Buffett said it best:
“I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month or a year from now,” Buffett wrote during the financial crisis in 2008. “What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.”
March 16, 2020 – the VIX was 82.5. March 23, 2020 [perhaps the bottom; VIX was 69] – some prudent folks have been buying high quality companies ever since.
Be Prudent.
Boy, I do love Robin Hood. Nearly wore out the VHS recording we had of that movie when I was a kid.
If there’s a vaccine that kills off the problem (in a year or so), then there will be a big rebound. The 1918-19 Spanish Flu was followed by the Roaring Twenties!
Fair enough. I won’t mention it again.
p.s. great disney movie… or greatest disney movie?
Hey all,
I took a two year hiatus from posting. In that time I was continually inspired by Leo’s hard work on HHV and started a blog of my own. It’s in the automotive niche, focused on all makes and models but I enjoy writing about EVs the most. The difference between HHV and Auto Blog Online is that Leo knows what he’s talking about, I do not so if you decided to have a read take everything with a grain of salt (comments are currently closed). I am passionate about automotive writing and have a goal of generating one article per week, maybe more during the pandemic.
From HHV I’ve learned there are a lot of owners who post about their Tesla or other EV on HHV so to kick things off I wrote this article:
https://auto-blog.online/2020/04/06/coronavirus-switch-gas-to-electric/
Anyways thanks again to Leo for the inspiration, I’m always here to help. I don’t know if I’ll be posting a lot more until Hawk returns…
Question for the community. If seeking a deal in the current market/situation, what would you offer relative to assessed value? Is it reasonable to think you might get a property for 5-10% below assessed value? less? more? All thoughts appreciated.
Thank you. I don’t find percentages intuitive.
♫
Sometimes ups
Outnumber the downs
But not in Nottingham
♫
—Disney’s Robin Hood (1973)
“Any HHVers out there getting mortgage deferrals they don’t really need to survive?”
No, although when I put in a request to the bank to remove prepayments from our monthly payment, they did offer to let us defer for six months, or to renew our mortgage early.
Ended up going for early renewal on a decently discounted variable since our mortgage is up in a couple months, and everyone else is offering garbage rates at the moment.
Yeah, CREA messaged me about those today.
Wonder how they’ll work.
People were used to rely on credit expansion to sustain their lifestyle as opposed to income growth. Will this continue forever? Will see soon.
Anyone gone to one of these virtual live streamed open houses they are doing?
She does that all the time.
Quotes Leo’s graph of up downs w/ %s and says every up is bigger than the downs. Even though it’s clear in the 80s that prices went down past the previous bump up & the % is just lower because it’s going down.
Also, remember when I said I was going to buy at 2008 prices? Maybe I don’t need a time machine any more.
Consumers have been binging on debt since the end of the financial crisis over a decade ago. Not much room to expand that “good life”. At the end of WWII hardly anyone had any debt, as most debtors had gone bankrupt during the Depression and banks hadn’t been making new loans.
Or maybe it’ll be more like the boom coming out of the great depression. Ie: WWII.
A 40% drop in the Teranet index for Victoria would take it all the way back to early 2007. It would take about a 25% drop to get back to early 2016. Perhaps you didn’t take into account that a rise of x% doesn’t need a drop of x% to get back to the starting point.
https://housepriceindex.ca/#chart_compare=bc_victoria
Meanwhile Norway said their outbreak is under control.
For the record, I think prices will probably drop. So I don’t think the bears are wrong on that.
But Leo’s right that it’ll be hard to tell how much they’ve dropped due to small sales numbers. And good luck timing the bottom. And double good luck on prices dropping 40%, relinquishing all the gains of a few years ago.
God no. Deferring would be antithetical to my paying-off-the-mortgage-ASAP approach.
In fact, a couple weeks ago-ish, I was musing to myself about personal worst-case scenarios and considering the soundness of using my emergency fund to continue extra mortgage payments…
Sweden with a 114 deaths today.
How happy will they all be by the end of the week?
Deferrals are not free money but a lot of people look at it as the low interest money it is over the short term. It is up to banks to publish clear criteria so more people don’t apply for non-hardship reasons if this is not the goal. Leaving the criteria as discretionary and unwritten just creates confusion and an incentive for some people who have more time now to apply and ex. start some home renovations. I think we can point to the banks, not the borrowers, as the solution to this issue.
The school property tax is provincial. I don’t just mean the surcharge on the $3mil+ properties, I mean all of it. Also, the property taxes that local governments levy depend on some degree on revenue sharing with senior governments.
That said, I don’t see property taxes being boosted, although I think they should be.
“Huge unemployment, Many businesses closed for good, High-end property market collapsed even before this crisis, Tapped out consumers, Many renters not paying rent, Much tighter lending, No oil revenue, Banks increasing rates due to higher risk, LOCs being reduced/capped by banks to limit exposure, Less tourists (airbnb flooding rental market), Older generation will be less willing to travel, Less students, Likely increased property taxes to pay for all the handouts”
All of these factors have validity, but they must be scrutinized in conjunction with the BIGGEST factor of them all: the LONGEVITY of the Covid pandemic.
Studies have shown that early and sustained intervention against a pandemic results in almost no lasting economic hardships.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy-lessons-1918-flu/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/upshot/coronavirus-cities-social-distancing-better-employment.html
In other words, if we continue with our shutdown for 40 full days (which will be pure Hell for the economy in the short-term), we can beat this virus down to a slow-burning fire (glowing embers) that can be controlled until a vaccine is ready for widespread distribution in one years time. And most businesses can resume working on an intelligent basis.
And our economy will be OK.
Not to be too Kumbaya here, but I have a vision of a rosier exit from the status quo. People are talking like we’re at war. And despite the verbal nonsense from some Americans, many political differences are being put aside to work together (Doug Ford and Trudeau, for instance).
Could we see a sunrise out of Covid where everyone breathes in the outside air, takes notice of their neighbour and starts something like another postwar boom? The 1950s started the most prosperous period the world has ever seen. I don’t think it’s crazy to think that at the end of all this isolation, staycations and home cooking people will be itching for a bit of the good life. Not unemployed single parents, to be sure, but over a few years I would be surprised if there wasn’t a boom starting 1-2 years from now. Ok, we need a vaccine first, but it’s coming.
Given that bank mortgage deferrals simply tack on any missed interest payments (and interest on that interest) on top of the principal amount owed…. delaying the inevitable (its not “free money”), you would think that in these gloomy economic times already debt-laden Canadians wouldn’t use mortgage deferrals to add to their debtload unless they absolutely have to. Well, you’d think wrong. Another front line twitter observation from Ron Butler, Mortgage broker:
“(Regarding mortgage deferrals applications) Some lenders are asking some actual questions and they get some odd answers
Are you unemployed now?
Well, we’re not working
But are you getting paid?
Sure, we’re both teachers
Or
Are you unemployed?
Sure we’re on pensions
Or
Are you unemployed?
Yeah, I’m self employed
And your work is stopped?
How do you define stopped
Or
Are you unemployed?
I see on your original mortgage application you were a homemaker
Yeah, nothing’s changed
And your husband works at a bank?
Yeah, he’s still there
No kidding folks there are a lot of odd applications when you broadcast a Skip the Payments message throughout a country”
Meanwhile, a number of banks aren’t even bothering with reviewing applications (time consuming, and potential for bad optics), and are just doing mortgage deferrals for anybody that asks.
Any HHVers out there getting mortgage deferrals they don’t really need to survive?
Yeah I was surprised at the big resurgence in activity in the last 6 months for sure. Public sentiment was just too positive still. Rates were down, incomes up, and stress test 2 years in the rear view mirror. People figured out ways around it to keep buying.
I do think that the stress test and all the provincial measures were not without value. I think the de-risked the market substantially. If we didn’t have them in place prices would be higher now and we would be at a risk of a bigger correction.
As for how much it might decline. I agree with you that 5-20% is within the realm of possibility, but it’s also going to be pretty difficult to tell what the decline actually is. If sales drop 70% in April, the averages and medians will be basically useless, and even the repeat sale indices will be very volatile. Some people are going to get some nice deals due to seller distress, while many others will pay close to pre-virus market value.
Certainly an extension of the hiring freeze. Unlikely to see large layoffs. Looking back to 2008, the Liberals trimmed government spending through a very long hiring freeze and attrition. You can be nearly sure the NDP won’t go further than that.
Property taxes are municipal and have nothing to do with provincial and federal spending. If anything we might get some reduction in the municipal increases as prudent local governments realize there is zero appetite for large tax increases at this time. Saanich already passed a status quo budget and deferred some planned projects for that reason.
“Then — and this always happens — a bear will take exception to what I just wrote and say, “Well then, Introvert, give me your good reasons for why prices won’t crater — evidence, evidence, evidence, blah, blah, blah.””
I don’t take exception to you having an opinion on other people’s opinions at all. And I definitely care not whether you agree with me. Having owned a few properties in the past, I’m in a position to buy again with a substantial deposit and motivation to do so, (starting a family etc). But due to the observations I outlined, and several more, this seems like the worst possible time in my lifetime to make a purchase. More red flags than a communist parade.
You’re a little late to call it now. The market has been on a general state of decline for years now. Leo’s affordability graph (my favourite) shows each cycle for the last 30 years takes a double top before going back to its max affordability levels. I see nothing so far in that graph unfolding that hasn’t done so for decades.
Ergo, it will probably continue, and that would have happened regardless of Covid. The latter is an exogenous shock, the extent to which we won’t know the effects for years. I certainly hope that we will see at least some of the gas pushed out the bag, as I find the notion of over-priced shelter so problematic in so many ways.
On the other hand…it’s necessarily not that simple these days. Systemic problems like high household debt, rates left too low too long, persistent deflationary pressures caused by technology and demographics, are probably going to be the forces which are going to compete with rampant money printing and intervention by central banks. The quantitative easing and resultant excess liquidity which cased RE in global markets to spike hasn’t gone away and in fact, it has intensified considerably.
To me, it raises the possibility of a much more volatile RE market – where we see a haircut of perhaps substantial proportions, but then it rockets back up as trillions of dollars slosh around the planet looking for a place to be “safe”, then all comes down again. Who knows.
But for those of you holding cash and waiting to buy: I think you’re in a good position, but, maximizing that position may take a few years. While there will inevitably be deals coming, be realistic. You’re not going to waltz into a bank and get a 2 for 1 deal on your dream home come September. The prices probably won’t be that different and to make matters worse, the banks will hate you unless you have stupid percent down and recession-proof employment .
For the nothing my advice is worth, I don’t suggest buying a condo, or anything strata unless you absolutely must. I continue to believe that segment is a catastrophe in the making, on so many levels. Vancouver, most of all. Indeed, to those of you who rabidly fell over each other to over-extend on a couple of condos with help from a private lender to rent them all out on AirBnB with no way to cover it without bookings…I suspect you’re toast, in every sense of the word.
While i joined this blog as a hopeful bear a couple years ago i have learned that everything can make sense and still not happen. We had a foreign buyer tax, a spec tax, a gov’t fighting back to illegal money washing, new b-20 guidelines which DRASTICALLY reduced affordability and the threat of a new property title rules (which have since gone through) all within a very short period of time. Leo even produced graphs showing out of town buyers dropping off in our fair city – we even had some interest rate bumps. Logically, to me and most others, after a 40% increase it seemed we were due for a pullback especially with all the new taxes/guidelines etc – i thought 10-20% seemed reasonable. I followed the teranet price index and we dropped 3%. 3%! thats it. Then prices went back up and as of last month prices looked to defy gravity once more and jump up – if not for covid19.
Anyway I hope we see some retracement and i wouldnt’ be shocked to see a 20% drop but i also wouldn’t be shocked to see no drop or a 5% drop. Time will tell but I’m not holding my breath at this point. The one nice thing is now i know i can work from home seamlessly without disruption so maybe a Westshore move is in the cards if prices don’t deflate at all.
Anyway, just my two cents – stay healthy everyone. Cheers.
Government jobs and the effect of this. My take.
Both federal and provincial are most definitely safe for now. For now being the part of the sentence I would focus on. As most are aware, salaries make up a significant % of departmental budgets. And when all the smoke clears from this, deficits will need to be reduced and I dont think it will all come from new taxes.
Capital spending for sure will take a hit but I also see, at the very minimum, a reduction in salaried positions (if even and only through attrition). Budgets will be cut and payroll will not be passed by.
As well, I also think when the smoke clears all three levels of government will have seen how many jobs it has that potentially do not require a full time salaried person to complete or oversee and those will be the first to go or not be relaced when the position is vacated. The pers working on or overseeing the Home Builders exam that Marko talks about may (and should from what i can tell) be one of the first casualties. A lot of work can be done from home and doesnt require a full time person doing it. COVID 19 I beleive is forcing government to adapt much like the private sector has and that wont be good for those in government who truly arent value added.
So if you are lucky enough to have a government job and you are working from home because of COVID (or even still at the office), I sure hope you are making yourself invaluable and producing top notch / quality work. Come this time next year, I can guarantee you most, if not all, budget allocations will have been slashed. Everything, including salaried positions, will be on the table.
I’m also pretty sure you are going to see a lot of rises in other things to help pay for all this. Perhaps ending capital gains exemption for houses (easy $$$ for government), increase in property taxes, increase in tax bracket rates etc. How can the government not? Raise taxes or reduce services or both.
3.18 million applications already for the $2000 / month CERB. That is out of a labour force of approx 18 million. ~ 17% that have lost all of their income owing to COVID 19. In little over a month.
Lets sincerely hope everything just starts back up when we get a grip on this thing and everyone magically gets their jobs back and people will continue to spend and throw caution into the wind. Cause if they don’t, there is no way this will be a v-shaped recovery.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/6782797/canada-emergency-response-benefit-apply-coronavirus/amp/
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-012-x/99-012-x2011002-eng.cfm
I didn’t have time to add all the other factors that will cause a 40% drop like strata insurance crisis, increased foreclosures, etc.
So… don’t be surprised by anything? Since anything can happen?
I guess I’d still be surprised that if we do end up with massive inflation that housing prices would go up. At some point they’d start raising interest rates, and Leo’s affordability graph comes into play.
Problem is you can’t time the bottom. I sold my personal house last year. Do I wait for the house to drop 100k, 200k, 500k to buy it back?
https://twitter.com/humansnocontext/status/1243501006811467776
Boris Johnson…
I really don’t wish harm on anyone, but when some one runs with the bulls, I’m really not surprised that they get gored.
On a different note,
Alberta reports another 98 cases of COVID-19, suggests benefits to wearing masks in public
https://calgaryherald.com/news/live-at-330-p-m-province-to-provide-update-on-covid-19-response/
Above is a classic type of bear reasoning (as I’ve identified a handful of times in the past): throw a shit-tonne of reasons for gloom (some of them valid) into a giant pile, then stand back and say, “That’s a big effing pile of reasons that prices will crater; it must be virtually inevitable!”
Then — and this always happens — a bear will take exception to what I just wrote and say, “Well then, Introvert, give me your good reasons for why prices won’t crater — evidence, evidence, evidence, blah, blah, blah.”
At which point, we’ve reached a second type of classic bear reasoning (which I’ve also identified before), which is “I’m able to argue my side better; therefore, the future that I envision will come to fruition, and yours won’t.”
Marko you make it sound like your clients are eager to pay top dollar for their houses -they are so against a break in prices (as for those big salaries we have discussed it endlessly). They are not ignorant, as you are saying, what makes you think that they will not wait for a better deal? You use them a lot in your examples, are you sure you are talking what is in their mind?
“Watch something totally unpredictable happen like we get inflation in a very low interest rate environment.”
Inflation is the only thing I can see that would support it too. But if you’re an investor and you’re looking for an inflation hedge, would real estate be attractive with the prospect of non-paying renters, increasing taxes and decreasing asset value?
Justrenter: “Who is going to buy, from your statement it is not bears, so who then? You ignored all what Sideliner mentioned in his post.”
No, he diplomatically sidestepped the question because he is a public personality. What realtor wants to tell their clients or future clients that their property is going to plummet in price.
The only inflation that you might see will be in some food items. Everything else will be deflationary.
When I go through my list of buyers in the last 24 months I can’t see many that would have lost their jobs. Doctors, nurses, government, military, large institutions, uvic, etc.
Unfortunately cooks working at downtown resturants were not calling me to purchase property before the outbreak.
As far as successful business owners they will be ok.
I am not saying their won’t be a price adjustment but there will be thousands of people with secure jobs that will be in a position to buy. Of course unless the entire system collapses but who cares at that point.
That’s correct, I don’t see inflation. I also didn’t see 40% upswing in the local market 2015 onwards.
I am simply saying don’t be surprised by a development that doesn’t cause prices to drop substantially.
2 days ago when I asked what if we get inflation this was your response :S
Marko are you saying that will be business as usual? Who is going to buy, from your statement it is not bears, so who then? You ignored all what Sideliner mentioned in his post.
Watch something totally unpredictable happen like we get inflation in a very low interest rate environment.
Whatever it bottoms out at whether it be 5, 10 or 15% very few will buy at those levels as every will be too scared.
Boris isn’t intubated as far as we know and from what I’ve heard a common protocol with COVID19 is to intubate on very low levels of oxygen which would mean he is on very little oxygen and most likely just in ICU in the event they need to intubate him. Until he is intubated the situation is not that dire.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but my opinions on medical issues are formed by what medical experts say, not what TV reality stars say one way or the other.
The treatment has nothing to do with Trump. It is being trialled around the world following proper medical and scientific principles. If it works it will be thanks to that process, if it doesn’t it will also be thanks to that process.
One person died from drinking aquarium cleaner not from the Cloroquine malaria drug which Trump talked about. When it is decisively proved to be a successful treatment a lot of people who poo pooed it because Trump talked about it will have blood on their hands.
As for real estate you’ll miss it again bears. There will be a 5-10 dip and you’ll sit on the sidelines humming and hawing and then you’ll be back here all mad about it. Screencap this.
Because this too will pass. And the stock market has scared some people out for good. And you need to live somewhere.
But I don’t know what will happen exactly, the market could drop a little, it could drop a lot. And should we get some miracle drugs quicker than a vaccine things could spring back. Too many future variables, but there is no doubt that the current ones don’t seem too sunny.
I hope Boris Johnson pulls through, no-one deserves covid.
The housing market has to be absolute toast doesn’t it?
Forget a little 10% drop. What are plausible reasons that this doesn’t lead to a drop to pre-2014 levels?
Which demographic is left to support the housing market at current valuations? I don’t see who’s going to buy.
Hope springs eternal on HHV.
It doesn’t.
All the best to Boris, hopefully the health care workers he has endangered with his policies pull through for him.
LookingAtBuyerOptions: For an individual seller, why would that be the prudent thing to do, unless you know for a fact that it will mean a better outcome within a reasonable amount of time?
You’re right. That’s not going to happen.
OSFI and policy makers are currently pulling out all stops to ensure bank liquidity now. The people that are working are going to have one hell of a time getting a mortgage or a mortgage re-finance when the banks are watching home prices fall.
Someone will list there home (a must sell) and the ever present and helpful realtor will list it at the market rate. The owner will get anxious after 2 weeks without a sniff and then they will drop the price, but not meaningfully.
Over the next 2 months, as they experience a recessionary market, they will drop their price significantly but not quite enough.
They will find price discovery when someone making $40,000/yr decides that it might be worth putting in a stink bid … and it gets accepted.
Now, unfortunately, you are sitting in that same building/cul de sac/development and you are about to learn what comparable sales in the area means.
Boris Johnston is in intensive care and it does not sound good.
I feel like Trump’s magic cure is gonna be the equivalent of what happened to the Iranians who thought alcohol will cure them.
Already 1 person has died. Wonder how many more.
To a point. If you lose enough equity in your current property, you’re not going to be able to sell and make the required down payment for a more expensive one.
This is one factor that keeps RE downturns moving.
You wanted them. Here’s the latest:
I caught that too. It’s a reasonable question IMO…?
Edit: Never mind.
Many (most) sellers that don’t need to sell are just looking to move to a different house. They may be upgrading, different neighbourhood, or what have you. That’s more who I was talking about, not the people that anticipate having to sell in 6 months.
Price for the opportunistic sellers is almost immaterial. They are buying and selling in the same market. So it makes sense to wait because:
Leo said: “sellers who normally would have listed last week but didn’t were ones that didn’t need to sell and are doing the prudent thing and waiting”
For an individual seller, why would that be the prudent thing to do, unless you know for a fact that it will mean a better outcome within a reasonable amount of time?
What if in six months average prices are down 10% and (heading into fall/winter market) still heading further downward, ultimately not recovering for a couple of years? This is by no means a prediction, but an example that we both know is possible (lots of things are possible). Would it then still be correct that it is “prudent” not to list a home right now? Are you guaranteeing a market outcome in coming months?
It costs nothing to try and sell now, and a seller doesn’t have to take any offer they don’t like. Especially with a low inventory, there’s a better chance than usual that a family that is ready will “fall in love” with a seller’s home that is the best fit out of a small selection—- and pay what the seller wants.
But if a seller doesn’t even try, they are guaranteed 100% not to sell. Many owners don’t realize how hard it is to sell their homes at the best of times; not every home is what everyone wants.
And, don’t forget opportunity cost. Even if sale prices are the same six months from now (and that’s a huge if), there is a calculable cost to not having access to money for six months (depending on plans for it), nevermind an incalculable cost of having six less months of one’s short life to do whatever you were planning to do with the proceeds (to the extent one can right now).
Now, if by “prudent” you didn’t mean financially prudent, but covid-19 safety prudent , then… In my best Gilda Radner old lady voice, “Nevermind!” 🙂
Not all townhouses are immune. https://www.langleyadvancetimes.com/news/insurance-shock-for-langley-condo-owners/
First!