What not to pay attention to
Real estate is full of numbers, and as more of them are automatically generated daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, it’s tempting to hook up to the firehose of information. The industry has glommed on to that trend, with every agent and every brokerage sending out weekly market reports or generating colourful infographics and Youtube videos with arrows pointing up and down. Unfortunately, most of it is noise and won’t help you determine what’s going on in the market.
Monthly prices
I talk about this a lot so this won’t be news to most of you, but individual monthly averages and medians are nearly useless. They routinely vary 5%, and even up to 10% month to month. In real estate when you have prices that rarely change more than 10% per year, a measure that can swing 10% in one month doesn’t tell you much. This was demonstrated clearly in recent months when the average price swung by well over $100,000 twice in the last 6 months.
The median is slightly better, but not that much. It also routinely swings by tens of thousands of dollars per month, and has shifted over 10% some months as well. This measure gets even worse in winter months when there are few sales. You want at least a 6 month average of monthly prices, or look at the various house price indices (Teranet and MLS HPI) which are much less volatile but have some of their own problems.
Month to month market activity comparisons
This one is commonly featured in sales infographics especially in the spring where every month the sales go up. They’re pointless because much of real estate is highly seasonal, which means in many months the seasonal effects dominate any actual changes in the market. If sales are up 20% from February to March, that doesn’t tell you anything about what the market is doing.
You might assume that year over year comparisons are more useful, and they sort of are because at least it is like for like, but they have their own problems. Firstly, because there is a lot of noise in month to month data, you get one noisy data point compared to another which can compound and often show large percentage changes without much change in the actual market. Secondly you can’t differentiate which month actually changed. A large decrease in a year over year comparison could be because the current month was very weak, or it could be because it was very strong last year. Thirdly one sample per year is a very low resolution look at the market. It tells you something about this year and last, but you won’t see any more recent trends. Seasonal adjustment and seeing context in a chart is key to interpreting most market activity stats and I’m surprised that nearly no one outside of economists does it.
Price drops
Although it seems logical at first glance, sellers reducing their asking prices does not mean prices are coming down. In fact price drops, even big ones, tell you essentially nothing. For example, in April 2016 when nearly everything was selling in huge bidding wars, there were still 219 price drops. The only potential data point here is the volume of price drops relative to active listings, which can sometimes indicate widespread seller mispricing due to a slowing market. But to make sense of that you need to compare the number of price changes to historical norms in different markets, which no one tracks.
In the end it’s a pointless exercise, because the selling price to list ratio gives you a much better signal that correlates with market strength without getting sidetracked by sellers in fantasy land. What matters is not what sellers are asking, but what they will in the end accept.
Hyper-detailed neighbourhood level data
People seem to love this stuff and I often get requests to produce more fine-grained statistics between neighbourhoods. Which neighbourhood is the hottest? Where are the deals? What’s the price to assessment by area? Likely because of public demand this kind of thing is also cropping up on data driven brokerage sites out east where you can see market conditions down to the block.
Does it make sense that the market is cool in one block and hot in the next? No it does not, no matter how shiny the map is. Source
It’s great in theory, but in reality all you’re getting is noise. If the monthly numbers for the whole region are already noisy, you can imagine what they turn into when you start chopping them up. While it’s true that some neighbourhoods occasionally experience a bit of a surge in activity this never lasts long and quickly equalizes as inventory is bought up and activity shifts around. With thousands of agents and many more individual buyers scouring the listings every day, there really aren’t any overlooked deals out there in normal markets. Even if there were the statistics are not where you would find them, as they are generally backwards-looking. For that you need to monitor the individual listings and sales yourself.
Also weekly numbers courtesy of the VREB
| August 2020 |
Aug
2019
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | Wk 2 | Wk 3 | Wk 4 | ||
| Sales | 207 | 661 | |||
| New Listings | 339 | 1006 | |||
| Active Listings | 2713 | 2838 | |||
| Sales to New Listings | 61% | 66% | |||
| Sales YoY Change | +41% | ||||
| Months of Inventory | 4.3 | ||||
We already know that due to pent up market activity from the spring, we are going to see some big numbers in August both for sales and new listings. So far sales and new listings are both trending about 40% above last year’s levels. If that keeps up throughout August we will see monthly records for market activity smashed again. It’s good to see new listings continuing strong, and surprisingly in the last two weeks new listings have come on faster in detached, up 43% from the same period last year, compared to only +16% in condos.
As usual, the combined sales don’t tell the whole story, with single family sales still strongly outpacing last year’s pace with bidding wars on every fourth place while condos are roughly on pace and are selling much more sedately.
That accelerated sales pace means we are burning through the pent up demand much faster on the single family side, and may run through it all by the end of the month (but more likely by end of September). That’s not to say we may not still see an increase in year over year market activity afterwards, but at least the main factor distorting the market right now will be removed. Then we will get a better sense of where we stand with the effects of increased unemployment set against lowered interest rates and people changing their living situations due to COVID.
patriotz- I’m 64, soon to be 65 and in better physical condition than 95% of the people walking on this planet, which doesn’t say much about earthlings. I am fully aware of the history of the tobacco industry over the last 6 decades. I witnessed the devastation it caused in my family, most who were smokers. Even though the percentage of people smoking has decreased, our population has increased considerably, therefore, there are probably more smokers than years ago. In some cultures, smoking percentages are a lot higher. I have a Chinese friend who told me her father in law once smoked 6 packages of cigarettes in one day. Smoking has to be the stupidest thing a person can do and if it was banned, a lot of people would quit.
New post and monday numbers: https://househuntvictoria.ca/2020/08/17/financialization-of-housing-is-a-red-herring/
Seen a cigarette box lately? I don’t know how old you are, but I remember the anti-smoking battles of the 1980’s. It was a real fight between the anti-smokers and the smokers, and the former won. Yes there are still some people who smoke but far fewer than decades ago.
Yes there is a problem with governments in a conflict of interest over drinking (booze taxes, Doug “buck a beer” Ford). Bad eating habits are a problem too, but there is a powerful lobby (just read the link below) against strong government action. And it’s just harder to get people worked up over habits that may kill you decades down the road compared to an infectious disease that can kill you next month.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/taxing-unhealthy-foods-wont-reduce-obesity
Palm Springs is about as unrepresentative of the broad US RE market as you can get. As in circa 2008, places like Riverside and San Bernardino on the way to LA are going to tell you the real picture.
Don Beach: Venezuela is a great example of a country that just kept printing money.
Thank you to those who supported my opinion on the general health of North Americans. The point I am trying to get across is that our government has gone to extreme measures to protect citizens from this grave pandemic, yet chooses to ignore self inflicted health pandemics such as alcoholism, lung disease directly caused by smoking, and rampant diabetes caused by overconsumption of junk food. This is the result of a deficient education system, including failure of medical schools to include nutrition in its curriculum. 90% of health problems can be cured or avoided with proper nutrition and regular exercise. I cringe every time I go to the grocery store and look at what people pile into their shopping carts. It’s disgusting, and even more disturbing knowing that they are feeding this garbage to their children.
@alexandracdn RE: “There is nobody more than I who would agree with you Leo about the economic situation as a whole. I personally think by March of say 2022 , the entire North American (at least) economy is going to fall flat on its face. So many of us are living in a total fantasy like bubble. It has gotta burst at some point in the near future. It has been over 100 years since we have dealt with anything like this. ”
100 years ago they could not print $100 Billion out of nothing…… Add a trillion $ to your thinking…. and then another trillion and another if needed.
The “Crash” cannot happen .. unless they stop printing $. Why are they going to stop printing $?
I can share some like sentiments with VicInvestor. Those who continue to be in poor health as a result of obesity or cigarettes….no sympathy for them. My situation, yeah sure, i enjoy food and sometimes the wrong food, a drink and sometimes a lot, a smoke and yes I am guilty of emotional eating, drinking too. But nobody is forcing my hand up to my mouth to consume these things. If one chooses a lifestyle that puts them at risk of one ailment or another and that risk is compounded as a result of something like infectious disease, covid or anything else, what do they feel they are responsible to do? Change or just carry on in their ways? Kudos to the obese person who was out walking but don’t agree with his reaction to you jogging past.
We must have hit just the right one hour period for loads of people down town.
There is nobody more than I who would agree with you Leo about the economic situation as a whole. I personally think by March of say 2022 , the entire North American (at least) economy is going to fall flat on its face. So many of us are living in a total fantasy like bubble. It has gotta burst at some point in the near future. It has been over 100 years since we have dealt with anything like this. But the people of 100 years ago were much more resilient, much more used to just the regular hard times. They were, the ordinary people, used to struggling daily. Individuals bartered and traded with each other, co-existed with their families, helped their neighbours. The babies of yesteryear were not brought up like the babies of today. We can read/listen to all the experts opine on the what we should or should not do during this epidemic. We can reason with ourselves as to what really makes sense. We can keep on paying our (for the most part) fat public servants their full salaries, and the governments can keep on supplementing EVERYBODYS incomes….whether they need it or not. And at the same time, as usual, sweep the unfortunate who desperately need assistance under the carpet as we have always done.
Who knows the answers, certainly not me. Don’t spend all your money on a house. Anyway, I could be wrong.
If Vancouver/Victoria real estate is out of control, then I don’t know how to describe US market, where record breaking places such as Palm Springs is literally on fire in more ways than just housing. Palm Springs temperature is 117℉ (47.2℃) for today, 118℉ (47.8℃) for Monday through Tuesday, and yearly fires are free bonus for living in a desert.
Real estate prices for homes in Palm Springs are 16 percent higher compared to July 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic — https://www.palmspringslife.com/palm-springs-ca-real-estate/
Heat Wave Threatens To Worsen California Wildfires — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipt_ANOz6cg
211-acre Tram Fire burning in northern Palm Springs — https://patch.com/california/palmdesert/containment-grows-palm-springs-brush-fire
We went to throw some axes at the wall today and I agree with Local Fool. Downtown is dead. Beautiful Sunday afternoon and the streets are super quiet. Sure there are people around but it seems the people that say it’s busy have forgotten what Victoria is like in the summer.
Restaurants with patios are a little misleading because you suddenly see more people outside but total capacity is still down.
Not sure if there’s any data there but many of the businesses downtown will not survive this
Just another note: The Blue Fox cafe, which is always busy, was the same when we drove past. I believe its located in the 900 block of Fort Street. I bet the line-up to get in was a block long.
Wow. Thanks for sharing.
Like how some Victoria bears always see a crash coming.
hmm, thanks Local Fool……….we were going south on Wharf from the bridge then left on Fort to Cook. We both saw the same thing in amazement of the people. I was responding to um…really’s experience on Friday (evening?). Maybe it wasn’t “what a difference a day makes” but rather what a difference an hour makes.
It’s funny how two people in the same place can see totally different things. I was down there today over the lunch hour. Looked at the market in Bastion Square, went by Earl’s, through the Bay Centre and down by Pagliacci’s. Also went to the Butchart Gardens later.
I’ve never seen downtown so dead. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of people, but the density of them was much lower. If I were to compare to pre-covid, I would say it had roughly the amount of people I would expect to see around 10:00 pm on any given night.
Bastion Square probably had no more than 25 people in the markets between Langley and Wharf, the rest were proprietors. Earl’s had a smittering of customers. In the Bay Centre food court at lunch time, there were almost more staff than customers. There were four other tables other than us that had anyone at them, and one group. Pagliacci’s was busier than almost anywhere else, which was easy to see too as they now have tables right there in the street.
Also, a conspicuous lack of homeless people. We saw one guy that appeared to be on drugs and doing a bit of the Jack Nicholson axe-murderer walk, but nothing else. Was never asked for change, and didn’t get the delightful treat of seeing some vagrant urinating with abandon on a wall somewhere.
Butchart Gardens was actually busier than a few weeks ago, but still completely dead compared to typical summer throughfare. Most visitors were white, but those that weren’t sounded as though they were Indian and Indonesian. You could see in the entrance gate people were coming in with annual passes (so, not tourists). I saw two small Chinese groups – anyone who goes there regularly in the summer knows what a dramatic change that represents from before.
Ya…at least from my perspective, it’s dead out there.
Oh, and why don’t fix those frikkin’ escalators at the Bay Centre? They haven’t worked in months…
Interesting / disturbing article
https://www.capnews.ca/news/indigenous-bones-victoria-burial-mounds-songhees-lekwungen-coast-salish-oak-bay
I was downtown Victoria today (Sunday) as well. All along Wharf St. the sidewalks were packed; mostly with people not wearing masks. All of the outdoor restaurants seem to be as full as they are allowed to be, and as I didn’t go in, perhaps the indoor portions were equivalent. It was as though summer tourism is as usual. Oh yah, also in South Fairfield, the outside restaurant area at the new building site at Fort and Cook, was totally congested. The area of Oxford and Cook also seemed much more crowded than usual.
Certainly society has been sending the message for decades that being overweight and smoking are bad for you. It’s been quite successful with respect to smoking, but is fighting a losing battle against obesity.
I don’t think it’s about not understanding risk. I just think it’s really hard for a lot of people to lose weight or quit smoking. The best they can do in the present situation is to be vigilant, and I can forgive them if they go overboard a bit.
I’d personally like to see the venn diagram of politicians (& countless real estate agents, developers, mortgage brokers, banksters, homeowners, etc.) who ignored younger generations complaining about the cost of money laundered housing/education as it intersects with those who expect younger Canadians to have concern for the health of those elders who didn’t care one whit about them.
I suspect a circle.
Barrister: I really don’t want to be a jerk. Just stating that people have a very poor grasp of risk. They panic about a new virus but completely ignore their chronic health conditions that actually pose a higher risk.
VicInvestor: On the one hand I think you have some point but on the other hand you really do seem to be a jerk.
Frank makes a very good point that there has been little education around the risk factors that increase the mortality risk of COVID. In April, while running, I came slightly ‘too close’ (let’s say 4-5 feet) to a very obese man walking on the sidewalk. He started yelling at me for not keeping the non-evidence based 6 foot distance. It boggles my mind that this man haD allowed himself to become so obese and unhealthy, but was now scared of a fit runner running past him. People have a very poor understanding of risk and health.
Experts having been giving this advice for years. Anyone still smoking (in most countries) knows it is bad for their health.
When this pandemic first appeared we were told that wearing masks was unnecessary, primarily to conserve mask supplies for front line workers. It was also decided that a lock down was necessary. A few months later, with a resurgence of the virus, we are being told to wear masks and the “experts “ are not advising going back into lock down, because they finally realize how utterly devastating a second lock down would be. This greatly diminishes my confidence in our authorities credibility and their ignorance concerning what the best approach is to handle this situation. It is difficult to protect a population of people who for the most part, choose to neglect their health by allowing themselves to become grossly overweight and out of shape. Add to that smoking, vaping, and toking that weaken our precious lungs, and it’s no wonder this virus and any other pathogen are having such a devastating effect in the world. Why the “experts “ did not take this opportunity to advise the public to stop smoking, etc… to help them fight all viruses is a mystery to me. Of course this would have resulted in a greatly diminished flow of tax revenue to our government that we are relying on to protect us.
The article is interesting for some assertions that I hope end up proven true:
This makes more sense logically than the other article posted, but, among other things, underlying risk factors, long-term health complications, and hospitalization rates (25%) are not factored in, and we really don’t know if the assertions are correct at this time. Given the large % of Canadians of working age with pre-existing health risk factors (over 30%) I’m okay to continue to be very cautious.
In addition, looking at Sweden is a bit problematic as there was significant voluntary compliance with social distancing and voluntary reduction of social contact to 30% of normal. And Sweden basically shuts down in July for summer holidays with many stores and some hospitals closing – even some police stations close down as workers head to their country houses. Stands to reason rates would slow now. Voluntary compliance is happening in Canada to a lesser degree, and in a more independent culture like the US, even less.
It is also worth noting that Sweden’s GDP is down more than its neighbours who did lock down and experienced far fewer fatalities: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-gdp-falls-8pc-in-q2-worse-nordic-neighbors-2020-8
It’s not every day that Saanich gets mentioned on a national newscast (I saw it on TV here in Calgary). Too bad it was because of this video:
https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/video-shows-large-party-no-physical-distancing-in-vancouver-island-neighbourhood-1.5065876
Please see this article written by extremely credible individuals that appeared in an Israeli newspaper. It is arguing against a second lockdown in Israel. It is entirely possible that the Swedish approach has been the correct(ish) one. Lockdowns and hysteria will likely only cause more damage. It was entirely appropriate to be cautious and fearful when the pandemic began, but we now know so much more about COVID and a more targeted strategy is required.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/72hi9jfcqfct1n9/Haaretz-20Jul20_ENGLISH%2012082020%20v3.pdf?dl=0
Well, if downtown Victoria can be used as any kind of bellwether for the rest of the province; our BC and Canadian hubris might be taking a bit of a beating in about three weeks time. I decided to cut through downtown this evening on my bike ride and by the crowds it seemed like a 3 cruise ship peak season busy in the downtown area. There was not much social distancing or very many wearing masks with big crowds moving in and out of restaurants and bars, along with jammed up sidewalks. This also wasn’t just young people, this was a multi-generational effort. The only thing that separated it from a summer cruise ship night was that there were less big guts and fanny packs. Good night and good luck.
The curve was so nice we want to bend it twice.
Must have just tested positive, since they were still working yesterday.
I just spoke with a client of mine who officially tested positive for COvid 19 – in Calgary. He sounds awful. His wife and kid were showing symptoms and unsurprisingly they both tested positive as well. Then i hear about the worker testing positive who works at the 7-11 on Douglas street. Its getting more real for sure.
They are not “too big to fail”. A government backup of their loan guarantees is not a guarantee to their shareholders. It’s my understanding that their equity has to go to zero before the government backup kicks in.
They take on additional risk for the same reason as any other business – short term profits.
“Competition”.
90% or 50% doesn’t matter much when Genworth and Canada Guaranty are “too big to fail.” Both insurers are aware of this fact and therefore have little to no concern about taking on additional risk.
And, unfortunately, the more customers and risk they take on, the more they become “too big to fail.”
It’s another one of those “heads they win, tails we lose” situations.
Why do we back an insurer at all when we have a federal insurer?
I completely agree with Evans concern about debt levels. I’m just frustrated at the theatrics and want them to actually do something. I’m not sure who’s in control of it but reducing the government backing of Genworth is where I would start. Makes no sense for CMHC to say that some business is too risky for them to insure and then back the private mortgage insurers 90% to do the same thing. Let’s reduce that to say 50% right off the bat and see how much appetite there actually is for those mortgages when they have skin in the game
It’s easy to feel like Covid happens ‘to other people’ until you hear about a friend’s months-long struggle with respiratory distress, losing her ability to work and fear for her kids. Then it gets legitimately scary. I mean, we all know the economy has to function for society to survive, we’re not transitioning to agrarian living, but Covid’s a real thing.
Looks like another perfect day out there. Notice that there a few open houses out there again.
And you’re wrong when you say it.
LeoS: > > Completely bizarre. If he wants to put the brakes on the “private” insurers then scale back their government backstop instead of putting on ineffectual theatre. Feels like he has been barred from taking action and now has to try to talk the market down.
Evan Siddal isn’t in a position to change legislation but he does have the support of another “important” gentleman. It sounds like he’s ringing the same bell that a lot of critical thinking people are regarding an advancing housing market during a monumental shutdown and high unemployment. Sometimes it’s better to start flashing the red light … long and hard.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/siddall-s-stark-warning-on-canada-mortgages-wins-cdic-support-1.1480175#_gus&_gucid=&_gup=twitter&_gsc=Wt5GQ0X
Only 86,000 households in BC got the rent subsidy. That’s not a lot.
cardiovascular disease (28%).
Hypertension: 25%
Obesity – 21%
Asthma – 9%
All chronic lung disease – 14%
Diabetes – 7.3%
Cardiovascular disease – 9%
And they don’t live alone for the most part. In order for isolation to be workable there’d need to be a place to isolate apart from their family members.
It would be the flipside of appeal to authority though (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority) if totoro hadn’t gone on to qualify the problems (bias due being rideshare CEO, problems with the studies themselves, etc).
Pointing out that someone isn’t a scientist or doctor is ad hominem?
Um, no.
“Rational arguments rarely convince people when they are in conflict with their economic interests.”
Including both of you Totoro and Barrister who are both wealthy enough to rationalize remaining scared and hidden away from real life indefinitely. For the rest of the world, things need to move on. In addition, I am sure you are both enjoying all this liquidity blasting your asset values into the stratosphere. Talk about Bias.
@ Totoro – thanks for the reply. Since the single decision to lock down has has increased a national debt that took 150 years to build up by 50% in 4 months, I think it’s pretty important to engage in archaeology on that one. First, I believe my data is more meaningful than yours because it’s empirically derived from actual experience – yours is modeled by some academic wonks looking at spreadsheets and theories about how the virus behaves. So, given that, based on that actual data, the results from lock down and non lock down countries are comparable and in some cases much better. The most powerful behaviors have been mask wearing and washing hands and they basically cost nothing.
Second, I’m not a big fan of adhominem – the author of that article is irrelevant as you can follow any one of the 30 links in it.
Third, the whole thing on the flu while maybe more comprehensive than what I presented is really just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I am talking about combined flu risk (all strains). I am saying that the inherent risk for working age, healthy people is essentially the same with or without COVID. What this means is that additional controls for those groups are redundant if you were comfortable going about your daily life before COVID. If you are a germophobe, well that’s another story entirely. Given the similarity of the inherent risk for working age people, no additional safety controls are required FOR THEM. Older folks and the weak, well they need to adapt to survive. Please note I use the word “they” not “everyone” because without the healthy working, there is no money to build controls to protect the sick and weak.
There is no civilization without production – we are living in a temporary money printing fantasy land right now with the biggest threat to global democracy ever in the CCP. This is no time to be sitting around worrying about some tiny, mostly harmless bug.
Pretty consistent lately
“Homeowners counting on mortgage payments being deferred beyond the six-month break they have received during the pandemic might want to reconsider, as home-loan insurers that have permitted postponements appear cool towards extending the holiday. ”
https://financialpost.com/real-estate/mortgages/mortgage-insurers-cool-to-extending-six-month-pandemic-payment-deferrals/wcm/69e4fafe-580e-4322-86e9-821c54757860/
Adjusted for inflation and interest rates and presuming 5% down, that home would command a monthly mortgage just short of 3k a month.
Interest rates then were about 13%, which over the next year would of course escalate to their peak of over 21%.
Portland re-legalizing missing middle housing on all single family zoned lots
https://www.sightline.org/2020/08/11/on-wednesday-portland-will-pass-the-best-low-density-zoning-reform-in-us-history/
That’s what we need for affordability
Back then everything was flying off the shelves too.
August 1980, Daily Colonist
Totoro: As always you present logical and well supported opinions. Rational arguments rarely convince people when they are in conflict with their economic interests.
This article is by someone who is not a scientist or doctor but rather a CEO of a rideshare business that is impacted by lock downs. If you look at the source data he references lock down is not defined consistently and is referenced by country and not region. There is no analysis of timing or other details of lock downs. There is actually very clear evidence that lock downs do work to contain outbreaks and prevent additional deaths. Ex. it is estimated that Italy’s lock down prevented 200,000 hospitalizations.
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/19/10484
You need to be clear about what you mean by the flu. Seasonal influenza is more deadly for toddlers and infants than Covid. Covid is more deadly than seasonal influenza for other age groups and particularly those over 65. A healthy 55 year old, for example, is far more likely to die from Covid than seasonal influenza (especially if vaccinated for flu) and 50x more likely to die from Covid than a car accident. However; if you are talking about an influenza pandemic this is different and could be more deadly than Covid for working people (like the 1918 Spanish Flu was).
The Spanish Flu was a pandemic flue had an infection fatality rate approaching four per cent for people aged 20 to 40 years old and subsequently killed 675,000 people in the United States among a much smaller population. In comparison, the COVID-19 infection fatality rate is about 0.01 per cent for people under 45 years of age. The study also found that COVID-19 is roughly 10 times deadlier than the seasonal flu for those who are not toddlers/babies and some of this difference comes down to vaccine availability – we have vaccines for seasonal influenza but we don’t for pandemic influenza or covid (at least not yet).
healthing.ca/health/study-confirms-massive-age-differences-in-covid-19-death-rates-middle-aged-hit-harder-than-thought/wcm/18a5bba1-f897-4e97-a203-1e5b33bfb1ad
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-rate-us-compared-to-flu-by-age-2020-6
As far as assessing complication rates, I’d suggest that covid has not been around long enough to have accurate data on long-term impacts for younger people but there are enough studies pointing to potential for serious effects that I’d be cautious.
That’s how the Okanagan, which was almost Covid-free, turned into BC’s hot spot recently. If it happened there it can happen on VI or anywhere else. Same sort of thing now happening to a big chunk of the US. Speaking of the US, the rest of your post sounds like it’s inspired by a certain someone south of the border.
Nan: Precisely were is the information on severity and likelihood of complications with Covid in the material you posted. I am pretty sure that I read that there was serious and likely permanent lung damage in a about a quarter of people between 30 and 50 who were hospitalized with Covid.
Personally I am going to remain in hiding but I can also understand the Trump view that the economy comes first. Difficult times ahead regardless of how you strike a balance. Lets just hope that this Covid does not follow the trajectory of the Spanish flue with a much more lethal second wave mutation.
“You can’t draw a line at some given age (e.g. 65) and segregate people based on that”
Why segregate at all? Just present data and let people do what they will. Lockdowns don’t work anyways:
https://medium.com/@premgurc19/coronavirus-lockdowns-why-we-must-end-this-failed-policy-7af773428743
Wash your hands and wear a mask, stay home if you’re sick. 80% of Canadian deaths were in old folks homes – it is clear that old folks homes/ elderly/ other at risk need to adapt a bit to survive but the relative risk for working age people is less than 1 (i.e. they are less likely to die from COVID than the flu – children are up to 10x less likely to die of COVID than with the flu) – healthy people need to get back to work and get the economy going again.
Oh but if you don’t die, you get the complications! think about the complications! There are a couple unique to COVID but they are rare. Most complications are materially similar to the flu in severity and likelihood.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm
Politicians are better off wrong as a group than wrong by themselves. Learn to understand data and go from that. The data says COVID is essentially a relatively contagious and variably bad/good flu depending on your age/health. If you are working age and not otherwise afflicted, wash your hands, wear a mask and stay home if you’re sick – everything will be fine. If you are old or sick, you may have some changes to make in how you live your life to continue to remain healthy.
On the plus side if cases keep spiking we can all work as contact tracers.
https://twitter.com/StephenPunwasi/status/1293955725992103936
You can’t draw a line at some given age (e.g. 65) and segregate people based on that. First, your disease susceptibility is not a step function of age, second, it varies among individuals of a given age, even without identified risk factors, and third many households have a mix of ages and health issues.
rush4life- You are right, and that age group, most who are retired, need to isolate while the rest of the population continues to function.
Frank you are forgetting about Age which plays a big role: “Victoria continues to be a mecca for the elderly with a moderate climate and fantastic natural beauty attracting seniors from across the country. The average age of Victoria’s population of 85,792 is 44.5 years, above the national average of 41 years, and the percentage of Victorians 65 and older is 18.1 per cent. That’s representative of a nation-wide trend that Statistics Canada shows as the greatest ever increase in the share of the population who are seniors” that’s derived from the 2016 stats can info – https://www.vicnews.com/news/senior-population-vacant-homes-growing-in-victoria-says-statscan/.
Looks healthy and normal. Free market fundamentals. Nothing to see here. /s
Barrister- The primary factor determining how hard an area gets hit by the virus is the overall health of the population, especially the prevalence of obesity. People on the Island, especially Victoria strike me as being very health conscious, so don’t worry.
Island prices.
Assuming that Covid starts to break out here like it did in Texas, what would be the impact on the housing market in Victoria?
Nova Scotia recently enacted mandatory masking in indoor public spaces. This in spite of having very low covid.
That’s an example of the kind of preventative action some of you are looking for… but it’s hotly debated there too.
Mandatory indoor masking in public spaces should have been imposed weeks ago.Unfortunately you wont get
masking rules until we have lost all control of the virus like they have in the US. At the end of the day you are to a large degree reliant on yourself to stay safe.
COVID-19 checkup: Here’s where Vancouver Island’s cases have been found
https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/covid-19-checkup-here-s-where-vancouver-island-s-cases-have-been-found-1.5059634
‘The more densely populated South Island region, which includes the Greater Victoria area, Port Renfrew and the Southern Gulf Islands, has recorded 50 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
The South Island had gone 23 days since the latest onset of symptoms, according to health data published Monday.“
“ Northern Vancouver Island has been the epicentre of coronavirus transmission in the Island Health region since the pandemic began, with the bulk of the island’s cases found in the vast and rugged area stretching from Courtenay-Comox to Port Hardy.”
CMHC head Evan Siddall going nuts over his leaked letter upset at the banks that are feeding more business to Genworth and Canada Guaranty and CMHC is rapidly losing market share. Apparently he was expecting them to only take the marginal loans that CMHC won’t take anymore, not the less risky business too.
Completely bizarre. If he wants to put the brakes on the “private” insurers then scale back their government backstop instead of putting on ineffectual theatre. Feels like he has been barred from taking action and now has to try to talk the market down.
Interior had less cases than the island today.
Interesting, sent them an email
Ahh, but who comprises the board membership and who’s interests does the board just happen to represent? It still comes back to the realtors……..
Doubt it. We haven’t seen the same type or frequency of more widespread close contact gatherings that Kelowna and Vancouver have for young people. We don’t have the density to support Vancouver’s pop up and party bus events – especially during the summer when students leave – maybe not to return now, and we don’t have the beach/party draw that the Okanagan offers to young folks from the lower Mainland where covid rates are higher. Plus the ferry is a barrier for younger people to travel.
Mandatory masks do help with transmission rates and you can see this effect in Quebec and Ontario imo. Only about 10% of people seem to be wearing masks in Victoria public indoor spaces. Even places like Fujiya which has signs plastered all over asking people to wear masks doesn’t seem to get more than about 30% voluntary customer compliance.
Or just fewer where there happened to be a COVID carrier in attendance. That’s luck in my book
Neither. Lack of masks will show come time for school to resume, but we have relatively low density compared to Vancouver and have had fewer indoor party type gatherings among young people than Vancouver (in general) or Kelowna (as a summer destination). However if you are going to compare provincially both Ontario and Quebec are doing better as a result, imo, of greater caution and mandatory masking. Mandatory masking would bring our numbers down here too. Right now about 10% of people locally are wearing masks in areas I’ve observed.
Realtors have no control over what is shown in the portal. Perhaps the board does.
So are we better at wearing masks on the island or just lucky?
It is becoming more apparent that all our efforts to contain the virus has been in vain. The probability of an effective and safe vaccine being developed within a year is remote. Also, a lot of people have indicated that they would be reluctant to get the vaccine. If this is true our only alternative is to let the virus run its course. Yes more people will probably die, but the majority of the population would become stronger. Hopefully young children will not be affected greatly. A bleak assessment for sure, but quite possibly the reality we may be facing. Sometimes Mother Nature just gets the best of us.
This has been a slow and steady increase since the beginning of July.
Since nothing is being done to stop it, it won’t stop.
Frances Donald today:
No theme is more important in the macro space right now than inflation. We are going to see a series of upside surprises in the inflation data… and it isn’t going to be “good” inflation. It’s going to be stealth “bad” inflation. Read everything you can about Stagflation.
For all the problems they have south of the border, the one thing they got right is having anti-trust laws. Unfortunately we don’t have such laws and leave things to adminstration boards to decide if organizations, companies, corporations, unions and etc… are abusing the public interest through their practices by a position of power, control of information, limiting competition, colluding or engaging in monopolistic practices. The problem with the regulatory board approach is that they tend to be vulnerable to lobbying and manipulation through political based appointments.
Then it comes back to the person representing you in a transaction has a vested interest in you paying the highest possible amount because they are commissioned based sales. The less information that is made readily available to you, increases your dependency on the person that has a vested interest in you paying the highest possible price. So, it is not really surprising that readily and easily available information is withheld from a client unless it passed directly from the realtor by the method of their choosing. None of it sets up for a client to find value in a transaction or even a falsehood of the belief that the client or the public interest can ever be met. I give the local cartel credit, they have kept their members in line, Zealty was only able to make it’s break through in Ontario is because board members there provided the information and then the board attempted to sanction those members for doing it; resulting in the lawsuits and competition rulings that forced the information to be released. There has been no such push here, and thus the abuse of the client, consumer, and the public can continue unabated. The funny thing is, if they even just opened the information up to clients it would help with this perception, but hey, it worked out for the music CD and newspaper industries in the long run when they were more focused on market control rather than the clients desires………
It’s almost two weeks since the long weekend and considering the number of out of province number plates in town then and the lack of masks being worn now this increase was bound to happen.
Both Ontario and Quebec now have mandatory masks in indoor public spaces.
Interesting how the rest of Canada seems to have this better under control now when BC was a model earlier on. Do they not have young partiers? Seems like a lot of luck involved here.
Beancounter – i really don’t see another lockdown based on this. Things would have to go way further off the rails for that and by that I mean many many hospital admissions. As far as in-class schooling goes that’s going ahead for sure imo. My hunch is that the leaders in charge are driving their decisions with much more focus on balancing economics with the healthcare focus that seemed to dictate all the actions earlier this year.
Stupidity and carelessness abounds. Many people don’t seem care anymore, especially the younger folks. In addition I am seeing loads of out-of-province plates every time I go out.
I don’t see in-class school lasting long this fall, if at all. We are looking at another lockdown if this continues much longer.
85 new Covid cases today, lets hope that this is an anomaly and not part of an increase that we have seen in the last week and a half.
Morrisey: Rather un-Canadian of you; the proper Canadian way is to appreciate our bicultural heritage. No pitchforks we need to favour the guillotine. Off with their heads.
Agreed, but opacity seems to be the Canadian way. So in the absence of transparency, this seems like the next best option.
Or maybe pitchforks & torches would work.
Or even better, realtors can just allow clients to see the information via the portal by opening up the permissions. I still haven’t heard any valid reason against the data not being shared with clients via the portal.
FYI Leo, the image for this article on the homepage is very blurry at desktop resolutions because it’s a stretched out 300×236 pic
I’m in Calgary applying my unique talents towards improving B.C.-Alberta relations. The locals have been quite welcoming, having not yet keyed my car.
Leo, Zealty posted about wanting to partner with someone who has access to island data.
Perhaps you could work something out?
The low infection rate, moderate climate and Canadians who will not be able to access their winter getaways for who knows how long, makes Victoria and the rest of the Island a prime destination for people looking to relocate. Of course it won’t be a mass exodus, but it will definitely have a significant impact.
We live in a country where if someone wants to move to another part of it, they are free to do so.
Hey just because you fumbled that $2M deal doesn’t mean everyone else will 🙂
Seems inevitable there will be mean reversion at some point on the average, it just hasn’t happened yet. Quite possibly by end of the month it will.
Kenny G: You are right that the vast majority of people in Toronto will not be even thinking of retiring in Victoria for all the reasons you have stated. It is undoubtedly more like a small trickle of people. That “small” number though might be enough to be an influence on the SFH market in Victoria (especially when add to Vancouver and Alberta numbers)considering that TO retirees tend to have deep pockets.
In terms of SFH how many buyers with money are actually need to have an impact in any given month. A friend of mine who sells mostly high end homes and is one of those agents who dominate the market was saying that he is actually surprised at the number of houses that have been going to out of town buyers. Mind you that is only his boots on the ground opinion and might not be statistically correct.
Stick to stats Leo….my gut feel tells me average will take a beating 🙂
For the bears, not to be confused with it will be cheaper to buy, probably the opposite just a totally different sales mix.
Really the big reason to use a portal other than what you said is to see sold prices.
It’s happening in other areas like out east and Zealty has that info on the mainland. Not sure why not here other than we’re a small market and no one has gotten around to it.
And as patriotz mentions it’s not randomly distributed. So for most people it will be drastically lower than this.
Victoria is about 1/2000 lifetime.
Toronto murder rate is 2.26 per 100,000 per year. Over an 80 year life, that’s a 1 in 552 chance of being murdered. I wouldn’t call that nonexistent. Victoria’s rate is 1/4 of that and among the lowest in Canada. https://www.statista.com/statistics/433691/homicide-rate-in-canada-by-metropolitan-area/
“People from across Canada and especially Toronto will be bringing their millions to the Island.”
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I just don’t buy that argument, I don’t think many people retire and then suddenly move across the country, leaving children and grand children along with life long friends. People tend to move when they are younger with less ties. I have met with a couple of thousand well off clients over almost 20 years and very few from points east of Manitoba who moved after retirement, some who did move actually went back after a few years.
There are plenty of small cities in Ontario that have low crime, are a few hours drive from Toronto, and are much cheaper than Victoria. And that’s where people from Toronto are going if they want to retire elsewhere, to a very large degree.
Regarding the murder rate, the chance of you or I being killed is pretty well nonexistent anywhere in Canada. It’s almost entirely confined to marginalized communities or domestic disputes.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/433691/homicide-rate-in-canada-by-metropolitan-area/
Could be. That said we’ve been hearing that since 2008. Buyers from Toronto have never been a big part of our market. Vancouver many times more likely.
One point of interest is that foreign buyers in June for the first time since last September were more than 5 buyers (minimum threshold for reporting). At 6 buyers and 0.84% of the transactions it is still tiny, but average price was $1.8M That is a hefty $2.2M in foreign buyer tax paid for the month. Point of comparison, the average price paid in the previous 2 years by foreign buyers was $690k.
Barrister- People from across Canada and especially Toronto will be bringing their millions to the Island. The congestion and covid fears is one issue. The crime in Toronto is off the charts, along with other major cities. I believe Victoria has around 2 murders a year. That’s an average weekend in some cities. Most boomers are reaching that point in their life that they want tranquility and peace of mind. They have had successful careers and probably inherited a chunk of money from their parents. Not everyone is in that position but thousands are. The crush is coming.
Not sure I’m wiser, but I wouldn’t live anywhere near a busy road if given the choice.
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/ubc-study-links-living-near-highways-to-risk-of-neurological-disorders
Why not set up an appointment to view and see how the noise level is?
I find myself continually drawn to 6010 Pat Bay Hwy. 2.65 ac, two dwellings (one is ‘off the grid’) for under a million. Yes, I realize it’s right off the highway, and it’s ALR, but this seems like a deal to me – especially in the long run – it must appreciate, right? Can someone wiser than me talk some sense into my off-grid-fantasizing-mind?
Upland prices seem to be pushing up a little if anything. Actually I was surprised that a SFH on the north end of Rockland sold for 3.2M a few weeks ago. The place was smaller than mine without the expansive ocean views so it really made me wonder what is going on with this market. Lower interest rates might be part of the stories but it is not the driver for 2MM properties and up.
The answer might (at least partially) lie with my friend from Toronto who is retirement huntin here this week with a 3 to 5MM budget. (And yes Kenny G. he is focused on the Uplands and Ten Mile as well as Oak Bay generally.
Lots of “new” immigrants are already living in Canada under TFW, student or other visa categories. When their status changes to permanent resident they get counted as new immigrants.
Quite a few high end listings right now, but sales are still brisk. We are 1/3 of the way through August and we’ve already surpassed last August in detached sales over $1.5M. 15 so far, so might get to 45, which is down from 60 in July but that would still be the second most number ever sold.
Yeah the methodology is very unclear to me. I think in many cases the economic class migrants are already here so the travel restrictions don’t tend to affect them
Greater Victoria detached average in August at $1.065M, down only $10k. Median up $14k to $900k, all time high. Doesn’t look like a beating yet unless top end collapses the rest of the month.
“SFH home average will take a huge beating this month the way things have started….lots of sales but lots in the sub million segment and not that many super high”
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What do you attribute that too? We are still in the market around for around 2MM, the couple of homes we are looking at in Uplands golf course area seem to have been stuck at 2016/17 pricing and dont appear to have moved much in recent years
Interesting they’re pretty much back to the same rate now. I would have thought less people would be admitted right now – maybe many have been approved for entry but haven’t arrived yet?
SFH home average will take a huge beating this month the way things have started….lots of sales but lots in the sub million segment and not that many super high enders so far.
Kirs Wirk. https://dusanjwirk.com/ Good with all sorts of tax questions. Not inexpensive though.
Hi gang, can anyone recommend a tax person (or maybe an official financial advisor?) who I can get some tax advice from? Questions about PRE and CCA (and so forth) as it relates to basement suites and garden suites. Thanks, enjoying the discussion and great posts as always.
So far economic class immigration well below targets but the rate in recent months seems to have recovered.
I see a nice home at 3553 Joy Close up for sale. Asking $889,000 and they purchased it 2 years ago for $851,500. I wonder why they are selling. I imagine, they are going to take a loss on this?
Thanks Leo,
They must have mistakenly given me the agents view in the past and then corrected it with new roll out. This is really too bad because I found having the complete listing history of a property extremely useful. Knowing how often it was listed, what it sold for and PDS gave real insight into the properties. Unfortunately, using the portal now for me, seems almost as limited as realtor.ca…Okay, I can get a listing a little earlier, it has DOM count, a floorplan and the assessment (mostly not accurate assessment), but this seems rather restrictive since you need to be dealing with a realtor anyway to be on the portal when there is so much more information right there and available via a site permission.
Is there a good reason why the additional information isn’t commonly made accessible? Is it a lack of clients making a demand? Is it real estate board rule? Is simply a maintenance of control by realtors?
I know there have been lawsuits and competition board rulings against CREA and the TREB regarding these information issues in the past, but that was mostly for externally publishing proprietary information to public sites. Since the portal is an internal mechanism, it really seems odd to restrict the information from clients within the online portal access.
To the best of my knowledge the previous version of matrix didn’t show this info. You can access supplements like floorplans but not PDS/title, that is only shown in the agent view. So I’m not sure how you were seeing that info. New/old portal should be nearly identical.
Some huge gaps between assessed and list atm all over the island – ex, 2060 Townley is assessed at $826,400 and listed at $1,335,000. 11149 Chemainus Rd, Saltair assessed at $595,000 and listed at $1,149,000.
Thank you Leo, a very measured and insightful view of the numbers game. The industry has more spin than a laundromat these days.
How are folks doing with the new portal format and access?
I am enjoying the access to the rest of the Island. However, with the old version, I was able to navigate to a details page that provided the previous sale prices of a listing, how often it was listed along with previous asking prices and some additional documentation such as the PDS. It appears, at least on the version that I have access, that I cannot get this data anymore.
Has anyone else run into this yet? Is this a new system restriction? A board restriction? A realtor restriction?
I found this an odd move since we have been moving away from some of the cartel format for controlling of data and the information. The data I use to access on the old portal version really made it easy to rule in or out potential properties without have to waste time requesting information as one offs. I can’t imagine a busy realtor would want to spend their day answering these kinds of basic questions that could be accessed online.
Any insights on this out there?