July: New listings disappear and constrain sales
The market continued much the same in July as in June, with the big exception being that new listings dried up quite dramatically. After over a year where new listings were surprisingly unaffected by COVID, they suddenly dropped substantially as soon as we hit Stage 3 of the re-opening. The month ended with new listings down 35% from last year, and lower than we’ve seen for 15 years.
A drop in new listings is about the last thing we need given that inventory is at a 25 year low which is as long as we have inventory records.
As I’ve said before, don’t expect this situation to correct itself anytime soon. We are past the usual peak for inventory for the year. That means even with substantial cooling in the market, don’t expect any great improvement in selection until spring 2022. From here it will likely take a two to four years to rebuild inventory levels unless some unexpected shock happens (not that we haven’t seen a few of those).
Single family and condo sales dropped a bit from June on a seasonally adjusted basis, while townhouse sales were unchanged.
Adding up all the sales shows we are still substantially above pre-pandemic levels but are continuing to drop.
The market overall hasn’t changed that much from June. Lower sales more or less matched by lower new listings, which means that months of inventory didn’t move and remains in extreme sellers market territory only slightly higher than at peak market heat earlier this year. Remember we normally need about 7-8 months of inventory for prices to start dropping (outside of acute shocks to the market like we’ve seen in the financial crisis and when the stress test was introduced).
Little changed on the bidding wars front as well. There’s a noticable decline in the rate of bidding wars from the peak of the market, but at close to half of single family and townhouse sales and about a quarter of condos going over ask, they remain very common.
Since bidding wars are usually engineered, the rate of over-asks is perhaps less important than actual prices. With the noise in averages and medians, and the odd lagging of the benchmark prices during the pandemic, I’ve taken to measuring price movements through the median sales price relative to assessed value. Using that measure, single family and condo prices were roughly unchanged from July, while townhouse prices moved up to a median of 28% higher than the valuation from 12 months ago.
Condo medians have been more or less unchanged from March, however we know from the above chart that condo prices are actually up since then.
My take
The sudden disappearance of new listings in July certainly threw a wrench into the cooling market trend for the month. The rate of new listings has always been completely unpredictable in the Victoria market, moving up and down seemingly completely unconnected to market conditions or the rest of the economy. In this case it’s likely temporary as everyone takes a break from real estate to enjoy our smoke free summer, but it means any relief for house hunters in the market has been delayed.
Normally the fall market can present interesting buying opportunities as the sellers who list in the spring but fail to sell start becoming increasingly motivated. However with the market as tight as it is, it’s quite a trick not to sell a house when you need to, so those opportunities may be few and far between this year. A return to balance would take a normalization of the market, but with the recent extension of the big pandemic financial supports (they’ve been extended a few times already), we have also extended the ultra-weird pandemic economics. The true state of our economy likely won’t be aparent until that is unwound, and with rumours of a fall election persisting, you can be sure the government is trying to make sure that doesn’t happen before the vote.
Leo- You’re dealing with sellers, what is the most prevalent reason for selling their house? Are they downsizing, relocating, leaving the province? I’m sure there isn’t one particular reason but I don’t see much motivation to sell a property now.
Hi Leo, where do you get the ‘sales price to assessed price’? I’m trying to find it on VREB but having a hard time. Thank you!
new post:
https://househuntvictoria.ca/2021/08/09/understanding-inflation-measurement-and-housing
Get a third quote and see where it lands. HVAC companies are insanely busy right now due to the federal retrofit grant. They probably just threw out a massive number because they don’t really want the work. Might be worth waiting a bit until that calms down if you can’t get a reasonable price.
Love this blog and was hoping for some help.
We are thinking of installing a gas fireplace and a heat pump.
Any recommended companies here in Victoria? I called around and they quoted me $10k difference between 2 companies so I was hoping someone reputable that you guys have worked with.
Appreciate your help.
Sam.
They may well be too young to remember the GTA crash of the late 80’s – early 90’s, which was the largest in Canadian history in terms of market cap. But there was a definite slump in the GTA market after the Ontario government of the day introduced a foreign buyer’s tax in early 2017. And a lot of people who’d made unconditional offers or bought pre-sales got into trouble.
Short memories.
That sub is just a gold mine of terrible real estate decisions today.
The things you read on reddit.
Considering the value of the University degree is more in the people you meet during the degree than the actual education you receive…
Don’t count on it. I was teaching fully online last fall, back to fully in person this fall with accommodation for some remaining remote students, mostly international.
The new normal will be much like the old normal
I think much university education is useless economically anyway, but employers are likely going to choose the BA with the in-person education over the one with the remote education, just as they have been choosing the BA over the high school grad.
The programs which do have economic value are going to require at least some of the courses to be in-person, which means the student will have to live near the university.
Physical attendance at universities should become less and and less (they really have a Sears/Eaton’s business model). Hopefully, a good thing thing from the pandemic could be the realization of the poor structure of post secondary education that leads to high costs (housing a big one). It’s tough to justify why most undergrad can’t be online.. Then it’s really tough to justify the cost once the delivery model moves towards greater online delivery. Yes, some things need physical attendance for practicums, but the the vast majority of a liberal arts education does not. Moving towards something like an 80% online to 20% at campus residency probably makes a lot of sense. $60k to $100k in debt is a lot to get buried under for a “life experience”, but hey, there are those suckers that spend 10s of thousands or more on weddings, so maybe universities can keep their scam going. However, an Amazon of education model would probably fair really well.
I think it would be reasonable for the province to mandate that universities and colleges plan to provide housing for all their out of town students and then give them / loan them the money to do so. It should be a moneymaker for universities given they already own the land.
“Out of town” is not the same as “international” nor is “local” the same as “domestic”. I would guess there are at least as many out-of-town domestic students at UVic as international students. Barrister was talking about out of town students (from anywhere) who require accommodation. In any case, I doubt it would be legal for UVic or any other university to enforce a quota on out of town students per se.
The problem behind limits on domestic students at universities is funding. They receive grants for a certain number of domestic students and cannot accept more. On the other hand they get no grants for foreign students and as a consequence charge them much more.
Reducing the number of foreign students without increasing provincial funding will not increase the limits on domestic students.
I’m sure that Victoria is the same as Vancouver, because Vancouver students and vancouverites has been calling for local student first for decades.
https://vancouversun.com/news/politics/foreign-students-at-ubc-squeezing-out-domestic-applicants-profs-paper-argues
UBC is displacing domestic students while allowing international students with lower qualifications into some academic programs, say a UBC economist and University of Alberta law student.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1494895
For centuries, access to education has been seen as a central policy initiative in the struggle for women’s equality. With the resurgence of the women’s movement in Canada during the late 1960s, education was again identified as a key policy domain.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-503-x/2015001/article/14640-eng.htm
In 2015, slightly more than one-quarter (26%) of women had a college diploma as their highest level of education compared with one-fifth (20%) of men.
Basis were built upon Canada as a signatory of the 1974 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. That political opponent pushes for higher education.
“If Saanich is dropping the ball, I wonder what metaphor best describes Oak Bay, the other municipality bordering UVic.”
If Oak Bay allowed secondary suites, it may increase the rentals in Henderson Oak Bay or North Oak Bay close to Foul Bay st, but I don’t think rental supplies will be increased significantly in other parts of Oak Bay because large portion (maybe most) of homeowners are either mortgage free or they don’t need rental income to cover their mortgage payment. In my opinion, zoning may be OB’s real problem.
There hasn’t been expansion in student numbers , there has been contraction (relative to overall population). This is due to demographics, as there are less GenZ students to replace the graduating Millennnials.
U Vic student population growth has been well below overall population growth for Victoria since 2015. During 2015-2020, Greater Victoria population grew by 6% and U Vic student population grew by 2%.
UVic can simply ask the province to override local planning which has occurred with other universities in the past. By gender equality I suppose that you are suggesting that we have to make up more spots for men since I believe that the majority of students are women. (53% are women). The graduating class is closer to 60% women. If you remove foreign students than the numbers shift even further in favour of women. I assume QT that you have not looked at stats for Canadian campuses for a while. Why do people just throw politically correct parrot lines all the time on this site.
Really? Never heard of this.
How?
What right to higher education is this?
Domestic students for decades has been advocating for that, however rights to education and gender equality dictates the growth of education institutions.
It is part of Oak Bay problem, because UVic fall under Oak Bay jurisdiction and all constructions on campus have to apply for variants that isn’t easily attained. Case in point the 1994 Common Wealth Games student housing, and the early 2000 residential construction that was reduced to 1 building instead of 2 buildings due to local resistant (if I recalled correctly it was over green space).
Uvic is building 620 on campus residential units that suppose to complete by 2022, but that is a far cry from more than 8500 students that are currently living off campus (not including living with parents).
Maybe the University should limit the number of out of town students to the places in their residences. I dont see why U, Vic’s policies of endless expansion should be Oak Bay’s problem. Let the students either pitch tents on Campus or have the University build some barracks for them. Didn’t Uvic somehow find millions for a football stadium just a few years ago.
Paying people more money is painful at first for businesses to absorb, but in the long run benefits the economy. My friend has two gift stores in Southern Ontario and had to give all his employees substantial raises when a $15 minimum wage was introduced. However, even with the pandemic and loss of tourists, his stores are making a significant amount more. The elevation of everyone’s wages put more money in their pockets and he’s probably benefiting greatly from it. Another example, in Ford’s early days, Henry Ford doubled his workers salaries so they could afford the products they were making and Ford’s sales soared. The downside is it could stimulate inflation and wipe out all advantages.
On the flip side, people have to understand that they have to be productive and make their employer more money. I prefer paying people on commission or a performance based salary to give them incentive. That’s the way I’ve always worked, never had a salaried position, always worked for myself.
Or made by a robot for $5.
We can’t blame the youngsters, if they randomly occupy McKenzie, Shelbourne, and Landsdowne weekly till Saanich/Oakbay provide housing for the students.
Somebody has already studied this actually:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-minimum-wage-increases-did-to-mcdonalds-restaurants-and-their-employees-11611862080
Of course, due to their very high burgers/employee/hour it’s not McD’s that’s the most impacted by higher labour costs , it’s the sitdown restaurant type of place.
“Pay people fair wages that mirror the increases in cost of living, especially here in Victoria or don’t be surprised if they quit or leave for somewhere else.”
Totally agree. Pay them more. Owners will have to pass the costs on to the consumer. If they can.
But don’t complain if your McHappy meal now cost $20. And don’t be buying everything from Amazon “because it’s so much cheaper!”
Only if prices and rents are flat (minus inflation).
Haha.
So, regionally speaking, supply is meeting demand?
Langford. Average growth rate of the entire region is 1.2% in the last 20 years. The individual municipalities are interchangeable, it’s not like those people all decided to move to Langford, that was just the only option for most of them
Too weak to lift the ball to start with.
If Saanich is dropping the ball, I wonder what metaphor best describes Oak Bay, the other municipality bordering UVic.
How is growth occurring despite drastically insufficient supply? Where are all these people/families staying?
Less than 400 units of housing completed in Saanich last year, for a region with a population of 125,000. The “freehold” completions are mostly just replacements of existing houses with new ones so really we added about 320 new units. Room for perhaps 600 people.
Meanwhile demand is for at least 1500 homes/year given regional (Greater Victoria) growth.
Crazy out there. Lots of rental completions but almost all of them are out in Langford. Saanich is seriously dropping the ball.
I’ve noticed this too.
I agree with this 100%! Pay people fair wages that mirror the increases in cost of living, especially here in Victoria or don’t be surprised if they quit or leave for somewhere else.
This is also true in the healthcare sector. Good luck finding nurses and doctors for all the rich retirees.
This society is broken.
Serious rental housing shortage this month – way beyond normal. I’ve had six friends reach out to me to see if I know of anything for their child who is planning to attend UVic this fall. It also seems like all Airbnbs are booked up for those who have tried to get one for a month until they find something.
…in other words, why care about a society that doesn’t care about you. Why be concerned about fairness in a society that isn’t fair to you.
I understand people’s concerns about people getting free money and not wanting to work. At the same time, though, I think the Bank of Canada basically giving homeowners half a million or more in equity in their houses free and for doing absolutely nothing has changed a lot of people’s attitude towards work and society not to mention the rise in housing costs have basically resulted in a pay cut. If they want to reward people for owning a home and punish those who work by devaluing their wages then I guess people will follow that lead. Also, a sense of shared responsibility goes out the window when the government decides half the people should be enriched at the expense of the other half. They also give rich homeowners tax breaks on all that unearned money while taxing someone who works at Tim Horton’s. Hardly fair. It breeds resentment, and rightly so imo.
Most people leaving the workforce are women and I think that’s mainly due to their predominance in service industries as well as school closures. BC didn’t do too badly on the latter but Ontario had the longest closures in Canada, if not the world.
It’s my take that most people on this forum (including myself) are from some sort of professional background and have been able to get though without much economic impact. Not so for a lot of other people.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/longterm-female-unemployment-1.5935882
Yes. A jobless year off is plenty of time for people to decide to switch job/career plans to a “Plan B”. People do that anyway over time, and covid may have just accelerated it.
If they’ve been through the experience of being laid off, maybe the lesson learned is that you don’t want to put yourself in that helpless position again, so you plan for something else. Why go back to work at the same place that laid you off, when the employer may do that again when the next “variant/lockdown” comes along?
That might explain why some people aren’t returning to the same places in the workforce. We will probably hear about great businesses in the next few years that got started by laid off workers with CERB and time on their hands to start something new.
I am one of the people that does find it “shameful about taking EI while you are looking for work…….while passing up part time minimum wage….”. I believe we each have a place in society and the responsibility that goes with it. I also consider myself extremely lucky to have been born into a part of society that gives me these choices. Others here in Victoria and more around the rest of the world don’t have that choice and/or need more help from society than I did. I worked to pay my way and more importantly to pay my dues for others that couldn’t.
Like many others I spent my early years working at low paying jobs and sometimes being taken advantage of. But I did the best I could do and moved on when I could. Many of my former employers realized after the fact that they should have paid me a bit more or treated me a little better but maybe that’s a lesson learned. Perhaps it is a lesson that some employers are learning now.
I’m not sure why people train to be geotechs, engineers, etc. and then assume they will have a job. If that was the case then society would be blessed with many more musicians, writers, artists, etc. and the world would benefit greatly.
That was last year though, not specifically about today.
Hmm. Seems like a poor plan since it will expire eventually. Unless they see it as a runway to build up their startup business.
Canadian Government data shows that “ at least 114,620 people who earned between about $100,000 and $200,000 last year applied for the CERB.” And “ A further 14,070 people who had made more than $210,000 applied for the benefit.” https://globalnews.ca/news/7473089/cerb-high-income-earners/
Since Victoria has 1% of Canada’s population, that would translate to about 1,100 CERB people with prior incomes over $100K in Victoria. And 140 Victoria CERB people with incomes over $210K per year. That’s about a 1-2% reduction of the work force in that income range, which is significant at the margins for hiring if they need to be replaced.
CERB doesn’t replace their full salary, but it might tip the scales toward them turning down a boring office job, in favour of a fun/simpler plan of staying at home, using savings and spending less, while still being allowed to build up some self employment income doing work they like. With no boss or time clock.
I’ve talked to some of these people, who took CERB but didn’t need to. And they justify it by the belief that the government wanted to give away money to help the economy, like they did in the US. And they’re in no hurry to rejoin the rat race.
Maybe they’re enjoying that more than full time office work as a geotech or engineer.
Everyone pays into EI whether they want to or not. Nothing shameful about taking EI while you are looking for work in the profession or trade you trained for while passing up part time minimum wage at McD’s.
Ya, but people use to consider it personally shameful to be a leech of your fellow citizens by taking a government cheque when any other kind of work was available, no matter what the compensation. However, I also don’t have much time for the Victoria service sector whining either, their staffing issues have been going on much longer than Covid. Getting staff is actually pretty easy, it’s just paying more and when you find good ones, pay them even more to keep them and don’t obligate them just to your business by giving them alternating schedules with split shifts that keep them at part-time hours while stopping them from working at other places just to keep the on the hook with your business without having to pay full-time benefits (loyalty and fair treatment is a two way street). The island has always been cheap on wages in a lot of sectors that always charge a premium, many tradesmen have to leave to get signed up for their Red Seal because the businesses here like charging them out at full rate, but really don’t want to pay the freight of the employee going through qualification. So, a lot of talent just leaves and when they settle and get established somewhere else, there is a strong likelihood that they won’t come back.
There’s more to it than that though. Was talking to a geotechnical firm the other day, they are saying they are getting very few applications for professional level positions too and are having a hard time hiring. Can’t imagine many engineers and geotech technicians are sitting at home on CERB
Not everyone on CERB wants to work for minimum wage.
Accelerated housing price a worldwide phenomenon thanks to Covid.
PBS – As housing costs boom, how home-buyers in one city search for affordability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL4dVw4jHYE
Boom or Doom: inside the extraordinary Australian housing market | 60 Minutes Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDTL-MqTz04
A lot of people who purchased in Yates on Yates are not happy, especially those with ground floor townhomes. Not sure why they didn’t sit any due diligence before they purchased. There has been a lot of problems with junkies and crime in that building.
Not everyone wants to live in the core and perhaps less so now than five years ago,
Condo coffins are not everyone’s first pick nor is Pandora exactly uplifting.
An interesting one from south of the border.
From: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-shift-happening-housing-market-180400525.html
It’s almost as if Langford’s structured newer subdivisions would be built irrespective of whether, and how much, the core densifies 🙂
“A persistent employment gap nationally.”
Help wanted signs are posted everywhere. A lot of head scratching going on in my circles about the extension in CERB/Employment benefits to workers when there seems to be work available.
Perhaps, what Young wanted to say is that he would prefer taller building with more floors.
To me it make more sense for the city to relax some local bylaws and restrictions to allow more modern designs with less height restriction in the area.
The Regent and the Delta Hotel is much taller in the area already, and the bridge modern design has diverted so far from the old iron bridge that doesn’t fit in the surrounding landscape, so why should the Northern Junk be restricted to the dated design and height?
No surprises there. Worst comments of the night goes to Young who said he would rather see someone put one story on top and sell it as a couple expensive condos instead of 47 rentals.
Or Isitt who said housing is a top priority for him (LOL) and personally he thinks these two buildings are kinda crap but doesn’t want this much height by the harbour regardless.
BC best in the country though
A persistent employment gap nationally.
Barely thought @ 5-4 which is disappointing.
I second this…Albertans also seem to like their structured newer subdivisions.
Northern Junk development approved after 43 years vacant. Here’s the play by play https://twitter.com/leospalteholz/status/1423497483506917379?s=21
I believe the crisis is already here. Healthcare on the island is suffering immensely because of the cost of living here. Attracting and retaining staff isn’t possible unless wages rise and we know that isn’t going to happen. The retirees coming from allover Canada should think twice about coming here. We have nice weather but our hospitals are understaffed and good luck finding a family doctor.
https://vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/many-b-c-residents-considering-moving-somewhere-more-affordable-poll/wcm/024b9aaa-ca2e-4da8-a338-2519cd0b18e6/amp/
This is where housing actually becomes a crisis that leads to a loss of economic productivity. If you can’t draw people in and the the ones coming of age here decide to move away, the result will be a skilled and professional labour shortage. The useful people will simply move on to where they can prosper leaving the lame and lazy behind to fight over who should be pay bills.
‘Wave of unvaccinated cases’: B.C. records 402 new COVID-19 infections, highest since May 21
https://www.citynews1130.com/2021/08/05/bc-covid-infections/
He was talking about Bear Mountain. The company that developed it went bankrupt 10 years ago. That’s money talking, not just someone’s opinion. Of course with the current hysteria anything will sell at a high price, but that doesn’t change the deficiencies.
“ people who are new to Victoria and don’t realize it’s really not all it seems with very few services and no parks and not very walkable.”
So they would like a $2m house that is walkable to shops services. And to parks. That all? How about add in ocean front? Mountain Views? And several acres of land?
Sorry they are disappointed with our city
Yes, the Delta variant at work. Israel, which was on it with vaccinations and had good uptake, has locked down somewhat again and has instituted a third booster dose for those over 60 and the immunocompromised. There is some research supporting a waning of vaccine protection after six months. And, of course, many of the poorer countries haven’t had access to a first dose yet which is troubling for many reasons but the world as a whole should be concerned as the unvaccinated who experience long covid provide an environment for more mutations – hopefully less virulent ones but who knows.
Not sure what Alberta is thinking.
I am surprised at the number of two million plus homes that have sold on Bear Mountain. A sign of the times?
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That would indicate more people moving to Victoria, BM tends to appeal to people who are new to Victoria and don’t realize it’s really not all it seems with very few services and no parks and not very walkable.
1MM is the new 2MM, there is sooo much money out there right now.
Overnight rate hasn’t been above 1.75% since 2008, and today it is standing firm at 0.25%, plus the government using Covid as an excuse to implementing quantitative easing. Thus allow the government to print much more money for spending than usual, that cause physical assets and commodity price to run rampage. And, now we are waiting for the next shoe to drop (rates increase due to inflation).
IMHO, the acceleration of housing price is not going to slow down till the government curbs spending.
https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/money-supply-m0
https://ycharts.com/indicators/canada_m2_money_supply
Supportive of many of the arguments on this Blog surrounding zoning:
https://youtu.be/r5YXjcO3z2c
I am surprised at the number of two million plus homes that have sold on Bear Mountain. A sign of the times?
Hey, I just want to say – thanks for the very detailed, quantitative and unbiased look at the real estate market! Please keep up the excellent work!
https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/rescued-by-ruby-real-life-netflix-movie-what-we-know-so-far/
In addition to our hood I saw them all over town. Clover Point, Burnside, Rural Saanich
For those who haven’t been following the goings-on in the Texas of Canada, starting August 16th isolation following a positive COVID test will no longer be required.
It’s been pretty clear for a while now that the only choices long term are get vaccinated or get covid. You will not be able to avoid the variants. I’m just hoping they can approve the vaccine for kids before ours are infected.
Covid cases bad in BC today (compared to just a couple short weeks ago) – 342 new cases and pretty high numbers on the island at 32. Big jump for us. also 2nd vaccine shots seem to be slowing down for some reason. Anecdotal at my work and reddit but people saying they know lots of people who aren’t going back for 2nd shot as they think they are fine or because they got brutally sick off the first shot and dont’ want to go through it again. Wonder if the island keeps jumping if people will sell and move somewhere safer (sarcasm).
Plenty of private lenders out there you can go to. Just don’t expect a 2% rate.
Kinda throws a wrench into the forced savings piece when you can’t actually use those savings.
And here is the issue. If you are at any age or stage and your income is not sufficient to pay the mortgage you won’t qualify. This is as it should be and there is no reason you couldn’t qualify if you do have the income and credit score no matter what your age. If you are receiving a guaranteed pension this is generally acceptable as eligible income (including RIF income) when qualifying for a mortgage and discrimination based on age is prohibited. A 75 year old with enough income can get a 25 year term mortgage in Canada.
https://mymortgagebroker.com/retired-qualify-for-mortgage-canada/
Sorry, my mind boggled after reading this part and couldn’t focus on the rest.
359 currently active in greater victoria (excluding Gulf Islands or Malahat).
How many buyers? Depends on the price. You could say that with about 50% of sales over ask, that means 50% have one buyer, the other 50% have usually 2 or more (not always). So in that sense it would be ~600 prospective buyers at roughly current prices.
Or you could look at the number of buyers interested. 1437 agents in town. No idea the average “clients” per agent. I currently have 131 active portal users with a search that alerts them of listing and sales they are interested in. I assume that is higher than normal but likely tens of thousands of those searches active at any given time. Many of those will not be serious buyers though.
“The Victoria Real Estate Board represents 1,437 local Realtors” – picked up a few extra during this boom (https://www.vreb.org/current-statistics#gsc.tab=0). Who can blame them – sell 1 house a month at 1 million bucks and you get $16,500 for each realtor. Granted they have desk fees, advertising costs etc i’d guess they are still making 15K on that sale (Marko or Leo could confirm). Doesn’t include the costs you put into a client that doesn’t buy/sell of course but still a pretty tidy profit for one sale. You can understand the allure.
If inventory stays low and constrains sales then I would imagine we see some realtors jump ship when they realize sales can’t always be record breaking. Be curious to see how many are around in a year or two.
Weren’t those put in place quite some time ago?
Frank K Doing a very rough look at between Sidney and Sooke there are about 350 SFH in Victoria. Of those about 100 are listed at over 2 million. Another 100 are under 1 million (before you get excited none of those are in the Uplands), Not an exact count but pretty close.
There are approximately 1300 real estate agents in Victoria, how many have clients looking for a home? If they all have just one, that’s not very good odds.
396 sfhs sold in July, how many are currently on the market and is there any way of knowing how many prospective buyers are out there?
A possible reason why the lack of inventory is beginning to appear more permanent is because of the OFSI rules which have basically eliminated equity lending. So a retired person wants to sell their single detached home for $1Million but they still have a mortgage of say $300000 and are looking at a $750000 condo but want $200000 from their home sale for travelling, medical needs or to help out their kids, find out they can’t qualify for the $250,000 mortgage on their $750,000 condo because their equity doesn’t count for anything and their income isn’t sufficient to qualify for the $250,000 mortgage.
The whole thing is completely stupid. The new OFSI rules give preference to 95% lending to someone who could lose their job 6 months down the road over a retiree who would have $500,000 equity in their home. What ever happened to bankers loaning against assets? That used to be the principle of lending.
With the lack of inventory affecting sales, I wonder if we will be able to see or separate the impact of the OFSI rules that came in on June 1st. It would make some sense that the last two weeks of August and heading into September would have a fall off as the pre-arranged/approved mortgages under the pre-June 1st rules expire. I wonder if those buyers will just tap out on their next approvals (knowing that they will have less buying power) until listings start to recover.
Tomorrow is Walk in Wednesday, where all COVID-19vaccine clinics in BC are open for walk ins. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/covid-19/vaccine/vaxforbc
2nd dose available if first dose was taken prior to June 16. First dose available to all.
First question is where are “all clinics” in Victoria, and what are their hours? This information seems to be buried somewhere on government web pages. Closest I found was this one, which lists the Victoria clinics, but not the hours https://covid19.islandclinics.ca/?q=locations&field_area_tid=14
If someone can find a link with all clinics and their hours, please post it. There are still about 30% of people that need a first or second dose.
Not now, not likely anytime for a year or so.
I am guessing no big prices drops this month. This amount of inventory may be the new normal for quite some time to come. I am noticing that the prices for Bear Mountain seem to have really crept up over the last year.