What happened to those rental-restricted condos?
Just under a year ago, the BC government abolished rental restrictions in BC condos. As a reminder, at the time the landscape of condos looked like the chart below, with the majority of condos built in the 70s, 80s, and 90s having some rental restrictions (either banning rentals completely or limiting rentals to a maximum number in the building), while newer condos were generally unrestricted.
Last year I found that before the restrictions came into effect, unrestricted condos sold for more per square foot than rental-restricted ones. I also predicted that now that rental restrictions were history, we should see that difference in values equalize as investors spread across all condos, instead of just buying in the previously unrestricted units. In other words previously unrestricted condos should lose a little value and previously restricted condos should gain a little value to meet in the middle with no significant differences between them.
Did that happen? To determine this, let’s look at condo sales in 2023, and compare prices in buildings that were previously rental restricted to those that previously weren’t. Does the difference in values persist or did it equalize?
Starting with the mean per square foot values before the policy changes as a review, we can see the difference in values between rental restricted condos and unrestricted ones. As a reminder we don’t include condos built in the 2010s or later because rental restricted condos become increasingly rare after the 2000s. To keep it simple we are also just comparing condos with rental bans vs those that are unrestricted. The discount for rental restricted condos varied by decade, but on average they were 12.2% cheaper per square foot. All the differences in means were statistically significant.
Then I took all the condo sales from 2023 and classified them by whether the building was previously rental restricted or not. Again we compare the values. If the impact of the change had been fully absorbed and there were no other factors, we would expect there to be no significant difference between the values of previously rental restricted and unrestricted buildings. However that is not the case, and again we observe a difference in values, but the discount has gotten somewhat smaller. The discount in the 1970s is now no longer statistically significant. However on average there is still a 10.7% discount for condos that were previously rental restricted. In general the difference lessened both because the unrestricted condos becoming slightly cheaper while previously restricted condos became slightly more expensive. However there’s quite a lot of variability here so that may just be noise.
Another way we can look at it is by mean sales to assessment ratios. Before the policy change, mean sales to assessed value ratios were consistently somewhat less for condos that banned rentals, but that difference was not statistically significant except for condos from the 1970s where restricted condos sold for an average of 9% less.
For sales in 2023, the mean sales to assessed value is more mixed with sales in buildings that previously banned rentals sometimes higher and sometimes lower than those that were unrestricted. Condos built in the 90s that were previously restricted sold for 5% more than those that were previously unrestricted, which was the only significant difference.
Overall then, while there is some evidence that the values of previously restricted and unrestricted condos have moved closer together as I had expected, the move is small, and there is some uncertainty given the noise.
That could be because:
- It’s only been about 10 months since the change, and many of the sales in this analysis would have been shortly after the change was made. Markets take time to adjust.
- The mechanism for values to equalize depends on investors buying previously restricted condos while buying fewer of the unrestricted condos. In a year of rapidly rising rates, investors have been sidelined and have been less active than before, muting any impact they have.
- Condos even now are still advertised as having rental restrictions. In August 16% of active condo listings still incorrectly showed as having rental restrictions which could deter buyers that aren’t informed.
- There are other factors than rental restrictions behind the discount in values. For example condos that previously banned rentals were also likely to be disproportionately age restricted. While even age restricted condos can’t be rent-restricted today, the demand for 55+ rentals is likely lower.
In general I would still expect the gap in values to slowly narrow going forward as the market does its thing. However it’s taking longer than I thought it would. I’ll take another look next year to see if there was more movement.
Also the weekly numbers.
| September 2023 |
Sep
2022
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | Wk 2 | Wk 3 | Wk 4 | ||
| Sales | 141 | 260 | 390 | 410 | |
| New Listings | 414 | 743 | 1044 | 1155 | |
| Active Listings | 2543 | 2618 | 2659 | 2300 | |
| Sales to New Listings | 34% | 35% | 37% | 35% | |
| Sales YoY Change | +18% | +15% | +28% | -46% | |
| New Lists YoY Change | +19% | +12% | +15% | +18% | |
| Inventory YoY Change | +18% | +17% | +16 | +104% | |
| Months of Inventory | 5.6 | ||||
Finally that surge of new listings from the beginning of the month turned into sales, which ticked sharply higher last week while new listings dropped to the same level of a year ago. Fixed rates have jumped recently, but that hasn’t deterred todays buyers who absorbed some of that new inventory.
Inventory continues to grow though, and market conditions are very similar to a year ago after outperformance in the spring and summer. Expect a similarly quiet conclusion to the year as in 2022.
Meanwhile the provincial government is announcing the housing targets for the first 10 municipalities tomorrow in Saanich. If you hear a wail out of Oak Bay you’ll know what happened.
New post: https://househuntvictoria.ca/2023/10/03/september-its-all-about-them-rates
I think I found one potential cause: Westshore has weakened way more than the core. Fewer cheaper sales => higher median and average.
Doesn’t really explain the rise in sales/assessment ratio but I bet prices will decline this fall, by both measures.
Details in the article coming imminently.
US 30 year mortgages now 7.7%. This is the highest since 2000. Experts like “bond king” Bill Gross say this will “shut down the house market” https://twitter.com/real_bill_gross/status/1709258752158036395
There is no way these numbers are a true reflection of the marketplace. I would bet a lot of money the median drops from $1.21 in October.
Could it be the more expensive properties don’t require financing as much and are selling at an ok pace while sales dropped off on the lower end? That being said condo median went up as well. Just odd how much the market can handle in terms of interest rates and slow sales.
From: https://globalnews.ca/news/10000476/mortgage-rates-rising-bc-selling-versus-renting/amp/
How much of a saving for an average SFH with 4000 sqf lot vs a 8000 sqf lot?
If an 8000 sqf lot cost $800K, would a 4000 sqf lot cost $450K?
Surprisingly enough not just the median price. Median sales/assessment also up a couple percent for detached in September from August.
Just for giggles, lets take a look at market conditions for newer housing around Mica Place. The home that backs onto the hillside is a 2,769 square feet house on a 4,520 square feet lot. In the last six months there have been 5 new house sales within a one-kilometer radius, having a finished floor area between 2,269 to 3,269 finished square feet with a median selling price of $1,365,000 plus GST.
That’s not much data to rely on, but the market area can be increased to seven kilometers which includes all of Langford and Colwood then the sample size increases to 27 sales and the median price is $1,340,000. Not much of a difference and as I said earlier I like this area of Bear Mountain over other areas because of the easier access to the highway and I would opine that so would a prospective purchaser and therefor they would pay a smidge more for a property on Mica.
Asking price for the mica property is $1,399,999. A two percent difference from what the sales are showing.
How about we now look at the months of inventory for all homes in the Mica properties price range of 15% +/- or $1,150,000 to $1,575,000. There are currently 93 active listings in this price range. On average for the last 90 days, about 20 properties have sold in this price range per month and are within this seven kilometer radius. That’s 4.65 months of inventory. A balanced market between buyers and sellers is generally considered as anywhere between 3 to 6 months. The closer that the MOI gets to 6 months the more negotiating power a prospective buyer has in obtaining concessions on the asking price, terms, and conditions.
Great. Thanks for that Whatever. You really seem to know your stuff. If you are in that area again, and have the opportunity to view those properties I’d sure be interested in your opinion. They are nice homes and as you say, they are close to highway access and shopping without the hassle of the Millstream crawl
Interesting that you mention the hillside lots with the stone retaining walls. I have been asked in the past to assess damages from non disclosing water issues with homes where the retaining wall has failed. But those have been in older neighborhoods at a time when building practices were more lax. One can only assume that the loose stone retaining walls have been professionally engineered with proper drainage and run off. Which is a really good question to ask the agent.
5 of the 8 have only been exposed on the MLS system for two weeks. The MLS provides a wider exposure to the marketplace. The average days-on-market for completed homes in Bear Mountain is 45 days on the MLS system.
I have not been on Mica, so I don’t know how far along the construction has gone. The thing about the days-on-market counter is that some properties may been listed whilst under construction. Construction may take between 6 to 9 months. Then the DoM tends to be longer as most prospective purchasers are less likely to make an offer when there is only a foundation built or the home is only framed. Once the drywall and cabinets are installed a prospective buyer is more likely to make an offer as they can visualize the finished product and see how their furniture will fit.
This is why some agents will re-list a property to restart the days-on-market counter. And I actually agree with doing this once the house is substantially complete.
Whatever, thanks. Yes, I know of the incentives that are being offered. I know there have been a few on Obsidian Pl that have sold. But why hasn’t anything been sold on Mica? I believe they have been up for sale for at least 4 months. Not one sold?….even with incentives? The ones backing the hillside part with all the trees been cut…..could there be a water run off/drainage problem? You would know Whatever……….just seems a long time with no sales.
By definition most asking prices are too high.
I have seen several homes on Obsidian Place and the advantage this neighborhood has over other areas in Bear Mountain is the ease of access to the Highway as one is not caught up in the grid lock around the big box stores. Eight of them have now been listed on the real estate board in the last two weeks with a very experienced real estate agent. 7 of the 8 asking prices are in the $425 to $517 per square foot range depending on size. The larger the house the lower the price per square foot.
The last two sales in the area were for a 3,129 square feet home on Obsidian at $427 a square foot and a 2,774 square foot home at $492 a square foot. There were incentives involved with these sales.
If you’re interested in this area then you should ask the agent about any incentives that may be offered by the developer such as an interest rate buy down for the first three years or credit towards the sale.
All price per square foot rates are plus GST
From: https://financialpost.com/news/economy/bank-of-canada-warning-inflation-feedback-loop
BoC starts signalling in advance of it’s next announcement to soften the blow and set expectations.
Madness…. I guess there’s still lots of room for rates to go up.
and we just hit the highest SFH median of the year @ $1,210,000 for October ($1,158,000 YTD average).
This market makes no sense, what da.
Too high by definition.
Uninsured 5 year fixed mortgages have gotta be pushing 6% by now, no?
None of it is garbage, but the methodology using reported sales and new construction is subject to a lot more noise.
For pending resales in the core, peninsula, and westshore (note a few pending sales in Sep 2023 are yet to be reported)
Wow, 5 year bond broke 4.4 today….
There are almost 20 new homes for sale on Mica Place in Langford. Address’s are 2621 to 2661. They all appear to have legal one bedroom suite and the price range is in the $1.4M range. I don’t think one of those home have sold yet and they have been on the market for many months. Is the price range too high? Lots of money sitting there.
Anyone looked at them?
Leo- What are sales YTD? Thanks
How much of that do you consider garbage data?
Just curious how this compares to the inventory growth of last year for Sept.
Final September Numbers:
Sales: 493 (up 26% compared to last September)
New lists: 1297 (up 12%)
Inventory: 2699 (up 17%)
The basement suite that we recognize today with its full height basement had its birth in the 1970’s. At that time one could buy a basement entry home with an unfinished basement that had roughed in plumbing for a suite That kept costs down for the buyer who could then finish the basement at their leisure.
Before the 1970’s most homes had a basement with a low ceiling height of about 6.5 feet. The public back then were not as enthusiastic of their neighbors having renters in their basements and the low ceiling height requirement was a means for the city to discourage development of basement suites.
Homes with basement suites have been around for a long time. Even Khufu’s pyramid had a basement suite.
Maybe where you come from, but Vancouver already had a large number of basement suites 50 odd years ago. On the West Side they were mostly occupied by UBC students.
Owned a house with suite back in the day myself and moved on to an unsuited house when I got tired of it.
I don’t know one baby boomer (in my circle) that bought a house with a suite to help pay the bills. A few did take in a boarder or student, usually after their kids had moved out. Lots of boomers did buy a cottage or second home down south, especially around 2008/9. House prices were realistic, immigration was realistic, the population was 2-3 billion when we were born. There was also lots of room to grow, there isn’t now. Houses were smaller (800-1000) square feet, basements were rec rooms or workshops, there wasn’t any room if you had 2-4 kids.
The only option back in the day was a duplex, and they weren’t that common, maybe one in ten or twenty houses. Boomers wanted their privacy, and still want it.
Canada does have a lot of Baby Boomers that have good pensions and are mortgage free. During their life time they bought a house with a suite to help pay the bills. But now after decades of low interest rates with many Canadians becoming mortgage free sooner they don’t have to rent their suite and they cherish their privacy and the lack of problems of renting out a part their home.
So I postulate that the lack of rentals may also be attributable to demographics from an aging population and decades of low interest rates. I am not alone in this thought. Doug Porter the chief economist of the Bank of Montreal has expressed a similar view. A view that helps to explain why in times of increasing vacancy rates we also have had increasing rents and why the rental shortage is so widespread from big cities to rural towns.
Obtaining evidence to support this hypothesis is next to impossible. No one keeps stats on this issue. So one is left to small sample observations which are most often wrong. But those few people that I am acquainted with that have now retired are not renting their suites. Our market is primarily driven by new or homes built in the last two decades where the owners need financing. Lots of data on them. But when it comes to mortgage free home owners there is no data. That’s about half of the houses in Victoria.
800,000 “students” going to bogus institutions of higher learning don’t help either. I thought there was this thing called the internet that could offer these valuable courses online.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-airbnb-canada-housing-crisis/
6 floor rentals. Again I called in to that public hearing and said why are we building 6 floors when we have the uptown Douglas plan calling for up to 24? Should be 12s that close to the university
6 floors are plenty high, it just won’t meet the demand and have any affect on affordability.
What’s the plan for those buildings that they’re tearing down along McKenzie (beside Fairway Market) between Cedar Hill Rd and Shelbourne?
Six is plenty high.
From: https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/homeowners-brace-for-mortgage-payment-shock-amid-higher-for-longer-rate-outlook-1.6585658
Time to grow some MOI: the 2% of mortgages being renewed at these rates is actually a much bigger scale with more an outsized impact than what folks are anticipating by just hearing the numbers.
Yes, once it’s 6 floors, may as well keep going. “Harris Green” plans 1,500 units, that’s the way to do it.
“Each month that passes, roughly two percent of mortgage holders face renewal at sharply higher interest rates,” Royce Mendes, managing director and head of macro strategy at Desjardins, wrote in a Sept, 19 note to clients.
I don’t think that’s bad at all, and would support a soft landing in prices. Assuming that home owners have not used their properties as an ATM machine, there would be a tiny fraction of home owners that would take a loss on their homes if they had to sell today.
As we look back in time, there have been a few spikes in the volume of sales. Assuming that most people have a five year term the impact of higher interest rates are not likely to have a significant effect on the market until 2025 and 2026.
Totally agree, but we can’t force big land owners to redevelop. They are starting to though. University Heights is being rebuilt as mixed use. I’ve heard Mayfair owners are looking into it. Nice thing about those redevelopments is they face essentially zero opposition. The university heights public hearing I don’t recall anyone speaking against, to the point I said why are we building piddly little 6 floor apartment buildings when clearly everyone agrees we want density here. let’s go big while we’re at it.
Agree x 3 with Frank re surface mall parking lots. You could put scores of high rise towers on them while forcing the parking areas underground. This would provide housing right by conveniences reducing transportation needs while improving the esthetic of the cityscape. This would also help the retailers in those malls. An added bonus is it would relieve some development pressure on other areas. This process is well advanced in Vancouver (Metrotown, Brentwood, Lougheed Town, Surrey Place now Park Royal and Oakridge) and just starting in Victoria with Uptown and University Heights. Saanich could almost meet its housing targets with this measure alone.
Survey of economists say no hikes expected.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/bank-of-canada-seen-keeping-rates-steady-as-growth-picks-up-1.1976510
(Sep 26.2023) Bloomberg) — The Bank of Canada will hold its key interest rate near the current level of 5% until the third quarter of 2024, economists say, with growth picking up momentum to end this year.
Governor Tiff Macklem and his policymakers are finished hiking, according to the median response in a Bloomberg survey of economists. But the central bank will cut rates only once in the first half of next year, according to the survey, and the policy rate will still be at 3.5% in early 2025.
That’s a change from earlier surveys in which economists saw the Bank of Canada cutting rates more quickly. The forecast for long-bond yields is also higher — the 30-year note is now expected to stay above 3% into early 2025.
Shifting expectations for global rates have roiled bonds and equities in recent days after the US Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee signaled one more rate hike this year and a high probability that borrowing costs will stay elevated in 2024 and 2025.
It’s an over abundance of money floating around that makes land expensive.
No, it’s the price that houses can sell for that makes land so expensive. It’s builders who buy the land. If the houses could not be sold for as much, the land would not sell for as much either. Remember the big drop in land prices in west side Vancouver a few years back as a result of sagging house prices. They weren’t making any more land.
Whatever-There are thousands of acres of building space sitting unused above every big box store, strip mall, etc…. Poor planning has created this situation that could have been solved by putting 10+ storey apartments above all of this wasted space. Employees could live above their place of work that would be beneficial for the environment and traffic congestion. Residents could easily access their food and necessities without leaving their building. That could eliminate some of the huge Amazon vehicles delivering items one at a time. Only one problem- this makes too much sense.
Don’t have direct insider contacts to BoC but Iike what I have been saying for the last 3 months, whole air bnb condos are done for.
It’s the cost of the land that makes houses so expensive. The cost of a building lot in Victoria in a starter neighborhood like Mayfair is $800,000 while in Sunriver Estates in Sooke it is $350,000. And those land prices go right up to Duncan now.
The land cost is $5,000 to $2,200 a month in mortgage payments just for that component. For most first time house buyers that puts most of the southern tip of Vancouver Island outside of their reach unless they have a large down payment.
Affordable housing requires affordable land.
Yes, this has been replicated in a number of studies now. Building market homes helps higher income a lot (because they get new homes) and middle income a medium amount (because they have less competition from high-income folks and they can move into better homes) and low income a little (because they have less competition from mid-income folks for homes).
Building deeply affordable homes helps low income a lot (because they get homes they can afford) and mid income a little (less competition for the lowest priced market homes).
What that means for policy is that public dollars and effort should go towards building deeply affordable homes that the private market can’t build, and we shouldn’t stand in the way of market homes because they help too.
Unless it’s a leak from Tiff himself I don’t see how any other source has credibility.
It’s been the 50 point talk mostly based on the bond market, resilience in the labour market and the sticky inflation on core items. Being aggressive is understandable because there is a desire after an increase in Oct/Dec is to wait until Feb/March to look at moving again and allow time to see the impact through the economy. Skipping the 25 points in September really baked in the 50 points between now and Xmas. 75 points would be something to see, but not too surprising.
Other topic: it looks like a lot of the stale listings got scooped up in the last week as offers started coming and prices were shaved a bit from their askings.
Barrister, I haven’t heard that at all. It’s been more have we peaked, or maybe a 25bps increase. Most of the causes of higher inflation on the last report was increased fuel costs, and housing costs, which one of those two are amplified by the high rates.
One of my neigbours was saying that he heard that there was a real possibility of a 3/4 point interest rate raise by year end. Frankly, the most that I have heard was a half point. Is anyone else hearing 3/4?
Thanks, Marko, poor assumption on my part. I thought things were more attractive with the changes as well, hence the head scratching.
I’m estimating that about 27 percent or about 100 suites of the pre-owned condominiums listed for sale are vacant condominiums. That’s good news for someone looking to buy their first home or an investor who would rent the unit. The bad news is they are a bit too expensive for a first time buyer. My best guess is that 60 percent of the vacant condos are outside of the price range for most couples looking to buy their first home.
About 10 percent of the condos (40) are tenant occupied so when they sell, most will be displacing a tenant(s) which will keep the vacancy rate tight but perhaps not enough to raise rental rates. The lack of rentals is still tough on people looking for a place but not as bad as it was during the beginning of Covid when rental rates were escalating.
When it comes to rent or buy the difference is significant for a one-bedroom. The difference between renting and a mortgage payment might be around $1,000 per month. The mortgage being the higher of the two.
As the rest of the world grapples with rising living costs, China is facing the opposite problem: falling prices. The world’s second-largest economy officially slipped into deflation.
This is similar to what happened to Japan during its economic boom in the late 1980’s when Japan was the world’s second-largest economy until its asset bubble burst in the 1990’s which resulted in decades-long cycle of deflation and stagnant growth and I opine that Japan’s asset bubble burst precipitated a moderate home price decline in BC in the mid 1990’s as Japan’s investment in BC dried up.
China’s property sector accounts for nearly one-third of its economy and some estimates put the number of vacant homes in China at 7.5 million. Canada’s economy is less reliant on real estate than China but it is still higher than the US at its peak bubble. A single indicator that may or may not have any meaning.
But again, we have little choice but to encourage more construction as to do otherwise would likely be worse for the economy. We definitely need new supply to meet increasing household growth as a result of immigration. But intuitively I question if we really need 3.5 million new homes at 2.5 people per household? With rising interest rates and housing starts at elevated levels if construction ramps up to that level we might have a supply glut as we did in the 1990’s.
Or not.
From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-66956769
Some interesting narratives from a two decade bull run on housing to the impact of over borrowing and multiple generations within families commiting almost everything into one asset class.
Building luxury homes that then free up middle that then free up starter homes is called the “migration chain” or “filtering” But it’s not a one to one ratio.
Evan Mast of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research concluded in his paper that covered 12 US cities included tracing back household moves over six moves.
His model suggested that for every 100 luxury units built in wealthier neighborhoods, as many as 48 household in moderate-income neighborhoods are able to move into housing that better suites their needs, vacating an existing unit in the process. Somewhere between 10 and 20 of these households are coming from among the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods, vacating units and reducing demand where housing is most likely to be affordable for working families.
Building luxury homes will make more affordable housing available, but one would need to build a lot of them before it trickled down to making housing affordable for most first time buyers. This isn’t the most efficient way to increase the number of affordable housing units, but since we can’t build 40 year old homes that would be affordable today, we have few options but to build a lot of new homes.
Unfortunately, while we are increasing multi-unit supply, we are decreasing detached housing stock (per capita), which makes detached houses less affordable. Lots of HHVers are only looking for detached houses, so “build, build, build” won’t help them.
$1 million+ is not “affordable” for 99% of the population.
You are just too logical Patriotz. Victoria area real estate defies all logic.
That’s what it should be. But the developers get to build what they want, typically depending on maximizing profit. Family homes don’t fare well in that scenario.
A person buying a $2 million dollar townhome on Hollywood Cres is moving out of something, for example, perhaps an older $1.8 SFH. Maybe a young couple that bought a starter home 10 years go sells their starter home for $1.1 million to buy the $1.8 million SFH the new townhome owner is selling. Maybe the person buying the $1.1 million dollar starter home has a condo they move out of and rent. This is not a far fetched example, but the luxury townhome brought a rental to market.
Sure, 25% chance someone from Vancouver/Toronto/elsewhere in Canada buys the $2 million dollar townhome, but then they are vacating something in that city.
All of them. The difference may be miniscule, but increasing housing supply for a given amount of demand will make all units more affordable. The market price, i.e. where supply meets demand, will fall.
What properties in Gordon Head will become more affordable now that two new homes at 4333 & 4335 Shelbourne have become available to purchase for 1.8 Million? They both have one bedroom suites, so I guess that will be two more rentals for students.
Building more units makes all housing stock more affordable.
The amendment made things more attractive, I just haven’t bought anything.
Yes, it will be interesting to see how this one plays out for the missing middle.
I thought “the missing middle” is not about affordability, but to build more midsize homes for families, be it owned or rental.
Re T/C article: I wonder what price range those 7 unit townhouses to be built at 1734 Hollywood Cres will be?
I’m sure they will be affordable for most home hunters.
Marko,
Just a question about something you posted Sept 26. You mentioned you haven’t bought anything since the strata property act was amended. I’m curious about what amendment made purchasing less attractive, if you don’t mind sharing. Thanks.
It’s sounds as though we are in Round 2 with the Missing Middle housing initiative in Victoria. From this article, however, I can’t tell how much of a difference these changes to the policy will have on making projects viable.
Arguably, since costs have skyrocketed in the past year, it’s possible that cost constraints will be too strong to see much uptake even if these changes are significant.
https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/victoria-overhauls-missing-middle-housing-rules-to-kickstart-building-7617745
Wonder how the sales to new lists looked this week? SFD listings seemed to be a bit of a trickle in core areas. Can’t imagine back to back long weekends to start October will end up prompting much onto the market.
Something I wished I had been monitoring in the market over a long period are listing price decreases. When it comes to condos in the Victoria core there appears to be an increase in their numbers.
An observation of mine over the years is that the majority of prospective purchasers do not make low offers on over priced properties. So while there are 453 condominium listed for sale, in the Victoria Core, not all of them are competitively listed. Generally speaking that’s why a stable market requires more new listings than sales to account for over priced properties which may be cancelled, expire, or have a price decrease.
That’s why monitoring the number of price decreases has importance. Price decreases don’t show up as a new listing and are not counted in the Sales to New Listings Ratio (SNLR). Yet when an asking price is reduced it has a similar effect as being a new listing.
For example there have been about 68 new condo listings in the last week, along with 47 price decreases. There has been one price increase, 3 expired and 2 withdrawn.
Things that may you go hmmmmm.
Taking a look at the rental market for one-bedrooms within a 6 kilometer radius of the downtown core it seems rent hikes are taking a bit of a breather. What’s nice about looking at rents at the end of the month is that one can gets a sense of the absorption rate for rentals with some rentals being listed since mid August.
The average rent for a one-bedroom is about $1,854 per month. The rental range for a one-bedroom at the end of the month is from about $1,600 to $2,300 with around 100 rentals currently available. Rents for lower price rentals relative to the size, condition/age of the rental get absorbed quickly while the higher rent properties tend to stay on the market longer.
In real estate agent tautology speak it would be that if you price your rental at market it will lease up sooner. Something that is true in every type of market and yet sounds informative to a client.
Thanks, very helpful.
Also interesting to note that total B.C. government revenue is about $77 billion, and B.C. provincial personal taxes (not including federal transfers) are only 21% ($16 billion) of that. For example, corporate/employer health tax/sales tax gets $18 billion – more revenue than B.C. personal taxes.
Good question. My basic understanding is that PIT is estimated at the beginning of the year based on a forecast and then you get a “prior year adjustment” from the Feds based on what actually came in the prior year. Last year, in 2022, there was a large prior year adjustment as the forecast for 2021 was really low but actually came in much stronger. From the estimates document:
“Personal income tax revenue declines 9.9 per cent in 2023/24 mainly due to an unusual high prior year accounting adjustment ($2.6 billion) included in the 2022/23 forecast. The revenue is expected to average 4.8 per cent growth over the next two years, in line with projected increases in wages and salaries and household income. ”
So in reality it didn’t drop its just that the prior year adjustment added to last years budget was quite large based on a low estimate for 2021.
Here is the current forecast: 22/23 23/24 24/25 25/26
Personal income:…………….. 17,712 15,953 16,705 17,519
So its more that last year was a blip. Prior to the pandemic we were around 10BN in personal income tax so its definitely been trending up considerably.
We’ll find out if Alberta implements their Compassionate Intervention Act. It permits involuntary treatment if a severely addicted person is at risk of harm to themselves or others and other less invasive measures have failed. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/involuntary-drug-treatment-alberta-2023-election
If they’re expecting a balanced budget, but instead projecting a -$6.7 billion deficit, I wouldn’t call that savvy. I’d expect that real estate developers and financing banks factor in government deficit projections to their “should we build,build,build?” decisions. So falsely telling them to expect a huge government deficit and falling revenues would be misleading and foolish. A little “contingency” fund in their estimates is fine (“savvy”), but not $6,7 billion.
This is pretty funny
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-public-yawns-as-ndp-outlines-rising-deficit/wcm/78a95076-e3c7-4872-bd4a-fc61981511f6/amp/
As I recall, this B.C. government has several times predicted a deficit only to post an “unexpected” surplus. So it’s hard to know whether the latest update is a continuation of its (quite savvy) political game of expectations-management, or whether B.C. really is deep in the red this time.
Best of luck, and keep us posted!
I suspect that the budget is expecting a large number of job losses in a number of sectors. Some observers are starting to suspect a hard landing for the economy. Not necessarily my prediction on the other hand I would be hard pressed to even consider investing here.
The -$6.7 billion deficit projection is huge, and bad news because it’s happened without a recession. If we do get a recession, BC economy is in big trouble.
For perspective, Ontario updated their 2023-24 deficit guidance August 14/23 and predicts only a -$1.3 billion deficit for Ontario. https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1003373/ontario-releases-2023-24-first-quarter-finances
I posted a question in the last entry about the idea of taking money from my wife’s extended family in exchange for equity in a future house purchase. My apologies for the delay in responding, and a big thank you to Leo, Barrister and everyone that provided their perspectives.
There were some points made that I (or my wife or her family) hadn’t considered. The foreign buyers aspect as well as major renovations weren’t things on our radar. We’re all in agreement that legal advice would be a logical next step. We’re not sure where it will land, and we now have more to chew on before we jump in.
This blog and the commenters are top notch! A big thank you for your thoughts.
Why? Fast population growth and fastest wage growth in the country. Shouldn’t personal income tax revenue be increasing?
Definitely. Both because housing insecurity and homelessness is extremely bad for your health, and because health professionals are literally saying the cost of housing is a huge barrier for attracting more people in that field
I don’t agree that addressing the housing crisis will necessarily put further strain on the health care system. People are moving to Victoria anyway despite the housing crisis, aren’t they? The argument could even be made that the housing crisis has a negative impact on health.
Patrtriotz I think the point of the cartoon was rather that many of our services have already fallen far behind and that adding this many new units will necessarily put further strain on systems that appear to be actively failing already. Nothing to do with the amount of work it is or is not for doing paperwork.
I’ve been a fan of Raeside for a long time, but the cartoon is lame. Having municipalities approve more housing more quickly does not require them to build anything nor does it require them to pay for skilled personnel in short supply. It’s just paperwork.
Barrister,
I’m very sorry to hear about your step-son, and hope that things improve.
And since we live in a permissive society, then maybe the best approach is provide treatment and counselling for those who want it, harm reduction for those who don’t, and less tolerance of public drug use, disorder and property crime. I’ve heard Germany strikes a pretty decent balance when it comes to drug use.
I don’t think involuntary treatment will fly in Canada.
Many people have sub optimal brains (for a variety of reasons. And many have brain damage (in one form or another). Maybe a brain scan should be mandatory for everyone wanting their freedom card. This is sarcasm – btw.
Whatever – im sorry to hear about your niece. My friends son died from bad drugs last September. He was 23, very smart and a beautiful young man with a soul of gold.
Dad is right – we need paths to support those who want to get sober and harm reduction for everyone else.
Sure, on its own. We seem to do a very poor job of providing a path for people to get clean. For those who can’t get clean or don’t want to, harm reduction seems like a good option to have.
We don’t even provide enough spaces for voluntary treatment and supportive services, we’re not even at a spot where we have to worry about involuntary.
I think another way to phrase the concern is in terms of timescales. Harm reduction is all about optimizing certain outcomes (like overdoses) over the short-term. But what about the long-term? Even for excellent and careful social scientists that’s a much harder research question to address. Also, over longer time scales you lose control variables; making it easier to shoot up breeds other problems if you wait long enough, especially wrt dealers and petty crime to support the habit, that are difficult to control for.
Best evidence from cohort and modeling studies suggests that safe injection sites are associated with lower overdose mortality (88 fewer overdose deaths per 100 000 person-years [PYs]), 67% fewer ambulance calls for treating overdoses, and a decrease in HIV infections. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5685449/
However, harm reduction seems like an extremely poor option compared with treatment and continuing support – but we don’t provide involuntary treatment and supportive services in Canada.
Barrister, If you read through my post you will find that you have jumped to a conclusion that all homeless must be drug addicts. My post was about the homeless not about drug addiction. I also have family and friends that have had drug addictions including a niece that died of a heroin overdose and her boyfriend tossed her body into a dumpster in East Van as he feared the police finding her body in their apartment. Neither of them were homeless.
Are there homeless that have drug addictions -yes. From that can we conclude that all homeless are drug addicts – no. It is a stereotype that some people in Victoria have to de-humanize the homeless as being unsalvageable while the opposite is more truthful. Many drug addicts and homeless do recover and go on to live productive and meaningful lives. They are not all irreparably brain damaged ten year old’s, sex workers, thieves, and drug dealers.
Once you dehumanize a person or group then they are perceived as unworthy of humane treatment and become targets of prejudice and violence.
Since taking office on June 30, 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has carried out a “war on drugs” that has led to the deaths of over 12,000 Filipinos to date, mostly urban poor. At least 2,555 of the killings have been attributed to the Philippine National Police.
Are you suggesting that the increase in overdose deaths is because of safe injection sites? From what I know, they actually work quite well at reducing overdose fatalities for the people who use them. We might want to consider having more safe injection sites, not fewer, and then crack down hard on public drug use.
Totally agree with Barrister on the drug issue and the damage to the brain.
I expect to see families suing governments, including the individual politicians and individual health care workers who have supported supplying free drugs because they believe that a clean drug supply will miraculously save lives.
Just as they mindlessly believed that safe injection sites would save lives….. when in fact deaths have only increased.
There is no ducking the issue. No quick solution. No miraculous dreams.
Just the hard reality that we must get people off drugs and give them the support they need to do so. ( Proper Housing and mental health support and hope for some kind of a decent future.)
The other real puzzler is why Frank lives in Winterpeg and owns a rental in Ladysmith and not vice versa.
Thanks Rush/ Extremely helpful.
Whatever, your comments underline a major part of the problem when it comes to dealing with drug addicts. (and before you rant that I am harsh, right wing and other name calling, I want to point out that I have had to deal with a step son who is an addict). You have not bothered to even do the slightest amount of research on the science behind addition.
You have not even stopped to take a minute to ask yourself the basic question of what is it that the drugs do that turn a person into an addict. If you have an IQ of more than ninety and bother to give it any thought the answer is obviously that the drugs do major brain damage.
The nature and results of the brain damage is not up for dispute. There is a ton of literature put out by the Mayo, UofT, John Hopkins, McGill and dozens of reputable research centers. These are not theories from some idiot with a political science degree but actual real science, the damage to a drug addicts brain is tragically and clearly visible. The cat scans which should be a smooth outer surface look like a walnut. The damage to two parts of the brain in particular underline the root cause of addiction. The first is the dopamine center of the brain (it has been misnamed the pleasure center) which simply put creates a hierarchy of needs for survival, breathing , food, warm, shelter in descending order. Through a complex set of mechanisms the drugs damage the dopamine center and make drugs virtually the only thing important for survival. Everything else is reduced to the trivial. Hence the absolute and almost irresistible craving for the drugs.
The second relevant part of the brain that is damaged is the the part of the frontal lobes responsible for risk assessment.
The damage to this part of the brain does not totally shut it down. It is actually worse than this in that the drugs basically create damage that freeze the risk assessment center into providing a signal that that says that there is no risk and that there is a happy outcome. It is why an addict can overdose in the morning be revived and then score the same fentanyl in the afternoon. He truly believes that there is no risk and that it will be a good outcome. On one level they will tell you that they know that there is risk but their brain is actually telling them that this time the outcome will be great.
We are dealing with poor souls who are seriously brain damaged. Grandma is not a child but when she has dementia
(which again is brain damage) we protect and when necessary institutionalize her. The good news is that in many cases the brain of a drug addict can effect major repairs over the coarse of three to five years but this requires total abstinence. The bad news is that a percentage of drug addicts are so damaged that they will never recouver. That does not remove our responsibility to keep them safe.
If I sound angry it is because I am. It is because our politicians and our department of health know better and yet for reasons of budget or for political support of the poverty industry that has arisen actually choice to condemn our children to death or destruction. Then to also have to listen to the totally inane woke opinion that drug addicts are not children makes one realize how lazy, stupid and irresponsible a portion of our population actually is today. I prefer to believe that that simply dont know better rather than to think they are actually evil. I am not sure what to say about our political elite that actually do know better.
They are only budgeting a 450 million drop in PTT revenue. The way things are going my guess would be closer to 600 million when all is said and done.
5 year bond has exploded, up 50 basis points in three weeks since the BOC “pause”. Highest since 2007. Will hit the 5 year mortgage rates hard.
Hey Barrister,
The update showed an increased deficit of about 2.5 BN as we were already planning a 4.2BN deficit. Here is the reason for the newest change:
As for why we already were planning a 4.2BN deficit – just looking at pages 34 and 35 which compare 2022 and 2023 – https://www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/2023/pdf/2023_Budget_and_Fiscal_Plan.pdf
I would say there was a very large increase to Health spending planned for this year (maybe for the doctors pay increase?) and also a large drop in both personal and corporate income tax planned. The health increase was 3.2 BN YoY, Education and Childcare increased 600MN. personal income tax were expected to drop 1.7BN and Corporate income tax were expected to drop a massive 4.5BN.
Lots of other moves in there but they seem to be the largest.
Cheers.
A billion to fight forest fires is more than budgeted and I agree is a bad year. My question, though, is what about the other 5.6 billion in the deficit?
It’s a real puzzler Frank.
Patrick Well it’s working i find it very pleasant to be out and about could work in Victoria too
I agree with Patrick, tourism is massive in Europe (also significant in Canada but not to the same extent) and I would think that the homeless are removed from the major cities.
You don’t have to go overseas to see less homelessness. When I go to my cottage, 100 km north of Winnipeg, there are zero homeless people roaming the area. No tents, almost no crime, no police force (I see the odd peace officer driving around), no arsons (a multiple occurrence in the city every week), it’s a different world. The community has over 1000 cottages in a small area and approximately 300 are primary residences. Yes it’s a seasonal community, but most cottages sit vacant most of the year yet are not broken into and taken over by squatters. On the other hand, Kenora, Ontario has a massive homeless problem and it is basically a resort town near Lake of the Woods area where there are wealthy cottage owners with properties worth in the millions.
Don’t be fooled. Rate of homelessness in France (45)/UK (54)/Germany (31)is 4X higher than Canada(10). The numbers in brackets are homeless rates per 10,000 people in these countries as listed here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_homeless_population
What you are witnessing in south of France (Europe) is is stricter police enforcement of laws preventing typical activities of homeless that are tolerated in Victoria (begging, unlicensed busking, loitering, pitching tents etc.). Especially in tourist cities. I was in southern Europe for two months this summer, and spoke to a number of locals about it. Many of them had heard about the homeless activities in Seattle, San Francisco etc. and were shocked that the police tolerated it.
Dee I think I’m next door in the south of France . Very little homeless and everything is cheaper than Canada , the longer I stay the more I save
I’m currently living Europe. There are far less homeless here than back home. I have generally seen two kinds of homeless people here. One group looks like cool punks with mohawks, guitars, spikes on their boots, etc… The other group looks very down and out, often looking intoxicated on alcohol. But there are much less homeless overall here. Also, I haven’t seen homeless that are flailing their arms around, twitching, and looking very unpredictable. I live right downtown in a large city (1 million) and still there is so much less than back home. But there is a lot of social housing here. Like so much of it. It’s peppered all around the core area – interspersed with regular flats. We just need a lot more density in the downtown and a lot more social housing. I also support harsh sentences for high level drug dealers that are shipping in fentanyl and the likes. We really don’t need to lock homeless people up to solve these problems. We just need to house them.
Apparently debt-servicing costs aren’t a worry just yet:
Unfortunately, many adult drug addicts have the mental development level of a 10 year old (or less). Not many 10 year olds have the capacity to know how to care for themselves. If you abuse drugs for any length of time the brain damage is irreversible. This requires institutional care, that is very expensive. We have to bring in laws that severely punishes high level drug dealers. Canada is too soft on crime. The current system is not working and we are all suffering from this problem.
A billion dollars to fight wildfires this year…
Nearly a billion in wildfire costs helps to push B.C.’s projected deficit to $6.7B
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-s-projected-deficit-grows-to-6-7-billion-for-2023-2024-fiscal-year
The first thing would be to ask them what they want instead of deciding for them what we want.
They may have drug and mental issues, but they are not children. So why should we treat them as a parent does a child. They’re adults, most know their own needs.
Sounds like a solid plan Totoro. Make it against the law and then we can arrest and detain them indefinitely.
If you are going to make it against the law to be homeless then you are going to have to arrest them. No point in a law that isn’t enforced.
Pretty much what Finland has accomplished. Not illegal to be homeless, but sufficient housing + sufficient treatment + very low tolerance of public drug use means homelessness both total and visible is drastically less than here
We could do that, but we chose not to.
https://www.ara.fi/en-US/Materials/Homelessness_reports/Homelessness_in_Finland_2022(65349)#:~:text=At%20the%20end%20of%202022,a%20decrease%20of%20185%20people.
I myself have some radical views. People should just not be allowed to be homeless and living on the streets.
It should be against the law to sleep and loiter on the streets, and the law should be enforced. What this means is that there needs to be some other place for them to be. If people are mentally ill or drug addicted they need treatment and a place after treatment.
I’m willing to pay more for this as a taxpayer, and I’d support a law making it mandatory ie. police/trained staff pick you up and there is a mandatory social assessment process and placement – hopefully developed in conjunction with and employing those who have been through treatment.
I don’t know if this is the best solution overall, but I’m tired of the status quo. It is inhumane and bad for the community and for businesses. Freedom to be mentally ill and drug addicted and brain injured and be preyed upon on the streets is no freedom at all.
There is no shortage of people in Victoria that have radical views of how they would deal with the homeless.
Whatever, I had to reread your post a second time for the fun of it.
Barrister, to some, freedom to move wherever they want, sleep wherever they want, and do whatever they want holds much more value than a roof over their heads. This one may be less grounded in reality than freedom, but some homeless argue that they feel safe out in the open, amongst the people of the city.
Trying to move the homeless into middle and upper middle income neighborhoods away from the city core where the cost of a condo will be in the $1,000 to $1,200 per square foot range may lead to an increase in vigilantism towards them.
Just like Archie Browning was at the end of it’s lifecycle over a decade ago until someone realized they were intentionally sabotaging it. Ian Stewart is actually one of the newest rinks in Victoria, and the ice plant is brand new.
Reality….one of seven emails I’ve received so far today below. The province is completely useless on their own end, do you really think they will play a big role. I don’t think people realize how big the divide is between political posturing/optics and actual reality. The province literally created an exam for no reason and then doesn’t assist people in studying for the exam, you can’t make this stuff up.
“Good morning Marko,
I came across your youtube video while searching for some direction on which specific areas of the code book to study and maybe a “mock exam”. I also spoke with a rep @ BC Housing who couldn’t share any information aside from the standard procedures and fees regarding taking the exam.
I would greatly appreciate a copy of your study guide.
Thank you for your consideration,
XXXXXX, Kamloops”
I think there are some prime areas for development in Victoria. What stands out are the railway lands. This seems the perfect area for at least another seven towers of thirty to thirty five stories. But one of the towers should be mandated as supportive housing. That should provide housing for a large number of the homeless. Supportive units for both therapy and clean drugs could be on the ground floor.
More money could be raised for the supportive tower by giving even more height to the developers.
Freedom, what it sounds like to me is that you want to call the province’s bluff. If the province wants more housing then they are going to have to put up provincial land for development. The city could overlay a comprehensive development for the lands at Government House. Let’s see how the province reacts to that proposal?
Government won’t solve all the problems but there is a reason we have it.
The goals of public policy are generally to promote the economic well-being of citizens, to protect the health and safety of the public, and to provide for the social welfare of citizens. Where private behaviour goes counter to what is considered to be in the public good and there are no existing checks and balances, government enacts laws or amends them and creates bedrock documents like the Charter and laws like the Criminal Code or, on a smaller scale, the Housing Supply Act.
I think the NDP has done a pretty good job on housing so far. It is a big issue that requires big moves.
I do agree with Marko that there has been a lot of weird municipal policies on housing. It is hard to be on Council and make decisions for the general good under significant nimby pressure when your mandate only extends to your municipal borders. The province and federal government have a big role to play.
That area (adjacent to Cedar Hill X) is actually in “Great town” of Oak Bay, not in Saanich. It is closed to the public now and dogs no more. I always (secretly) hope that they will build a medical school there to help MD shortage on the island (and the province).
Great idea, “the state” fixes everything.
Being honest about socially unacceptable attitudes that fail to consider the needs of others is not really more admirable than beating around the bush in my opinion. It is pretty easy to see through the NIMBY excuses just like it is pretty easy to see through racist/sexist/homophobic attitudes. The social contract requires a degree of care for others or the state needs to step in.
One way Oak Bay could fast track condominium and rental apartments is to blanket zone entire city blocks all at once to multi-family. That’s like 20 to 25 houses at a time. Then the developers can buy up these properties and start to demolish the houses block by block. Under a comprehensive development it’s possible to save or relocate trees.
When I look at the neighborhood around Fort and Foul Bay, I wonder why are these old single family homes still there. They should have been under the treads of a D-9 bulldozer long ago. The shopping, schools, and banking are already there.
So why hasn’t it happened? Probably because It’s too risky to assemble two or three properties at a time and then hope for rezoning. If the zoning is already in-place that takes away a lot of the risk. So why not use zoning to encourage development in areas.
By using zoning as a carrot rather than a stick, Oak Bay could become the equivalent of Vancouver’s West End.
Wasn’t talking about you…..just the average NIMBYer making up idiotic arguments against a development when they should just state that they don’t want change.
Me? I’m fine with development.
The Cedar Hill property has been shut to dog owners since 2020 and it was never a designated dog park. There is a development plan in place for three areas of UVic, starting with the Ian Stewart Complex because it is near the end of its lifecycle, near the main campus and on established transit routes. Queenwood and Cedar Hill are next. Seems reasonable. https://www.uvic.ca/_assets/docs/uvic-real-estate-plan.pdf
Have you watched rezoning meetings? Developer lowers height then it’s a tree. Then after the tree they saw a deer on the property and its a sensitive ecosystem.
Just tell it like it is, you don’t want development. Fair enough.
I think people deserve a say in how their community develops. That’s the point of the OCP isn’t it? Scale/height/shadows are a legitimate concern imo. I am by no means a NIMBY or anti-development, but I think height restrictions are appropriate in many areas.
Right, so one level of incredibly wasteful inefficient government will force another incredibly wasteful inefficient level of government to do something, common let’s get real.
The province runs the owner builder exam legislation/department which is 110% useless and increases costs and delays housing and they are going to somehow speed up building departments across muncipalities. Thanks for a good laugh.
Only one thing is guaranteed and that is this legislation will create more bc government jobs. I mean someone has to oversee all of this, hire various consultants to publish progress reports on how the municipalities are doing meeting their targets, etc.
I believe the Housing Supply Act allows cabinet to make an order in council issuing such a permit. Whether they exercise that power is another question, but like I said, the legislation itself seems pretty good. There is authority there to make municipalities move their feet.
5-year bond market….wow. The next three months are going to be difficult.
and
Hmmmm. I guess it is better than nothing; however, I don’t think it will help much. There are a lot of tangible solutions that would ACTUALLY create housing given the environment we are heading into.
EVEN at these interest rates if the COV came out and said we’ve made a commitment to issue missing middle sixplex permits within 14 business days I would pull the trigger. Am I going to take money out of a 5% GIC to wait for city staff to take 18 months to approve a building permit? lol, no.
Yes, a ton of projects won’t be viable and there are a lot of ways to make them viable such as (love or hate Stew housing got built)
“Mayor Stew Young and Langford city council are offering their own $2.5-million stimulus package that will waive building permit fees for residential construction and provide a 10-year tax holiday for new federal and provincial office space, as well as new rental accommodations.Feb 20, 2009”
We are going to have a huge problem on our hands in 3 to 5 years as we see a slowdown in housing construction coming up. A ton of projects will get scrapped because they are not viable while the feds keep pumping immigration.
If government was smart and actually wanted to solve a problem they would put measures into place right now to keep housing construction at max output during this difficult interest rate/credit environment.
No GST on rentals is a start, but a lot lot more needs to be done immediately and it won’t be done.
Self interested, yes of course. Everyone is. However, I do believe the majority of people are self interested and completely clueless (do not understand Leo’s hot dog example). I have a close friend that knows and understands the housing issues, but he admits that he simply doesn’t care and despite him being very anti-development and me very pro-development we get along great as everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Him and his wife sold a house in the COV and bought a multi-million dollar property in Oak Bay and he would prefer no further development as he feels it would best for him and his kids for Oak Bay to remain as is in terms of self interest enjoyment.
The majority on the other hand are along the lines “yes let’s solve the housing problems,” but not in my hood because it will cause a 2 foot shadow. Just tell it like it is, you don’t want change. I respect that, I don’t respect bullshit arguments.
I don’t think the average NIMBY has a very high level of financial savvy; however, not sure how development would suppress value? If Abstract and Aryze started building condos in Oak Bay with $2 million dollar units I can’t see that devaluing SFHs in Oak Bay, actually the opposite.
The reason I want to acquire more condos in Vic West long term is I believe that further development will only further increases prices. The logic being the development will make the area nicer and more attractive.
A lot of NIYMBs use the argument that when a bunch of density goes up prices go up too so building more is not the solution….well yea, usually the area becomes a more attractive place to live with more amities.
Except that it is not owned by Oak Bay. It is owned by the capital regional district health district, has a covenant on it to help the elderly and do public good, and is limited by projects which meet the mandate of the CRDHD which is, ” to develop and improve healthcare facilities in the Capital Regional District in partnership with Island Health”. Supported housing and treatment for seniors, long term care, and health care services would fit, but general redevelopment would not unless there was a rezoning and the CRDHD was on board due to healthcare benefits overall ie. combo of affordable housing with healthcare. Maybe that will happen.
If you decided to demolish your home and then build a six-plex and took the plans and cost estimates to your lender they would have the project appraised. The appraiser would value the property based on its economic rents and the projected net operating. And most likely the result would be that your construction costs including your land value would be well in excess of its value as though completed. Not by a little, but by a lot. For most home owners that would make the project economically unviable.
To build rental housing you need large government subsidies or you have to get the land for almost free. If you owned the land free and clear then it might be possible to sell the land to say a REIT and lease it back from them for 99 years. That would give you the extra capital to lower the outlay of the cost to construct. To a tenant it does not matter if the rental is a leasehold or freehold – they pay the same rent. In this way you might have a net positive cash flow after expenses that would make the project economically viable.
You may want to google leveraging sale and lease back transactions for a better overview.
Uvic is wanting to demolish one of the few ice rinks in Victoria to build non-student housing instead of getting the dog people upset. So doubt that happens. New president must be a dog owner.
Question: UVIC (along with many universities) is sitting on a large amount of undeveloped land (part of used as a dog off-leash area) Can Sannich (or province) push them to develop it for more student housing? Do they have any authority?
And it’s not just a problem facing developers; higher levels of government may soon think twice about ponying up gigantic sums to help build housing, as their debt-servicing costs, too, increase. More and more, interest rates will exert pressure on the province and the feds to lower spending and probably raise taxes.
It’s hard to weigh in on this discussion without have seen the methodology and assumptions that were made to estimate these targets.
I think there should be targets estimated but the effectiveness of them should be monitored against market factors such as home appreciation and vacancy rates. If the vacancy rate in Oak Bay were to increase to say 3 or 5 percent then I would consider that Oak Bay has met its targets. Building more rentals after reaching that point would then be an inefficient use of resources and the land base.
Of course, all of these targets would become meaningless if BC were to fall into an economic recession as prices would most likely decline and vacancy rates would increase. What you don’t want to be doing is adding more supply onto a depressed market that would be deflationary. And while we all hate inflation a little bit of it is good to grow the economy. In contrast deflation is very bad as China is now experiencing with its glut of housing . Some estimates are that 65 million homes are vacant in China. If there is such a thing as a reliable estimate coming out of China.
A pet peeve of mine is the vacancy rate. There is no centralized data base available for prospective tenants and no way that a municipality may obtain timely and reliable information to assess. Without that information we are relying on third party information that, in my opinion, is neither reliable or accurate to plan future developments. One of the first things I would want to determine in planning developments is what type, price, and size of rentals are in demand. Then I could build to suit those needs.
Then I think the province may have to step in and mandate zoning and bylaw reforms for Oak Bay if they don’t do this themselves and this is the real stumbling block. Oak Bay seems pretty keen to develop the Uvic lands, although I’m not sure how that works if they belong to Uvic.
I have no way to assess the concerns raised about infrastructure age/condition, staffing, and available lands vs. other munis who are densifying. Hopefully the province does.
The intent of the legislation is to get municipalities to stop blocking viable developments, and it provides some pretty decent override powers if they don’t get out of the way. If financial conditions have eroded to the point that development is no longer viable, that’s a different issue, and municipalities may very well miss the targets.
I don’t see this as a PR exercise at all. It seems like pretty good legislation to me.
Except it’s simply not true. Every municipality in the core is built out and yet there is interest in redeveloping to multifamily housing. But the vast majority of the land is zoned single family, and the last developer dumb enough to apply for rezoning in Oak Bay is on year 10 of the process with little to show for it.
The idea that Oak Bay lives in some magical alternate universe where no one wants to develop is not even remotely credible. Got a message from an Esquimalt councilor: “All of the points in Oak Bay’s letter apply equally to Esquimalt. We’ve approved/seen construction of 3250 units since 2020. It’s infuriating to read”
Practically speaking none of these targets are going to be met in any city. Why? The cost of money is through the roof and credit is drying up. Developers will have a hard time making most of these projects viable and, in fact, I see fewer projects getting underway over the next couple of years than before. This whole exercise is a PR exercise that ignores basic economics.
The site of the former Oak Bay Lodge is an seemingly obvious choice for residential development.
I thought it was well-written and raised some very valid concerns, not the least of which is that there are no lands under the control of OB that are useable for large redevelopments to meet its targets within five years, and residents have limited interest in redeveloping their own properties.
This is not 1960. Prior to 1950 Oak Bay was largely recreational being transitioned to residential – the land use plan was developed but not built out well before 1950. The biggest land owner in the North area was the Hudson Bay Company. There was a large race track where Carnarvan Park was. The Hudson Bay developed and sold off its land for residential purposes and a large pierce was sold to Uvic. Carnavan and the rest of Oak Bay was built out onto the predetermined residential lots – which are now fully developed, but the infrastructure (sewer and water) was built much earlier and is failing.
What I do know from personal experience is that Oak Bay is the epitome of nimbyism and the majority of residents do not want any any further development. To me, this is no longer an acceptable reason to stymie projects. OB needs to get back on the United Church project and amend its bylaws to remove the potential for neighbours to stop projects like this and those that are blocked by one oak tree like on Oak Bay Avenue.
One oak tree in a residential neighborhood is not an impact that cannot be mitigated by planting a tree on public lands like Uplands park and we are in a housing crisis. I also try to avoid buying near large trees because they don’t live forever and become a hazard. Every year in Oak Bay someone’s house gets damaged by falling trees/branches yet the protected tree bylaw makes redevelopment much harder.
I also would like to see the 10-factor matrix that was performed on all municipalities in BC. It would be good to see which ones are doing things that work better. My guess is that there was a category for nimbyism (whatever it is called officially) and OB was top of the naughty list.
Leo’s crack graphics department hard at work, I see 🙂
In summary, Victoria, Saanich, and Oak Bay have five years to build one-third of what’s actually needed.
And if one of them fails to meet its target, the province will appoint someone to give the city a stern lecture.
Don’t think the latest brilliant idea is going to amount to much. Can’t see any of the municipalities hitting any of those targets. Imo
This letter from Oak Bay is the most whiny 10 pages I’ve ever heard from a mayor
https://www.oakbay.ca/sites/default/files/2023-09-14-Minister-Kahlon-Housing%20Targets%20Response.pdf
Prepare for five to 10 years of financial disruption from persistent high interest rates
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/article-prepare-for-five-to-10-years-of-financial-disruption-from-persistent/
PDF: https://docdro.id/GkkDkKC
I agree with the sentiment and pessimism here, Marko, but I think you will agree that the underlying cause isn’t people being clueless, but people being self interested.
I think the reality is that as our laws currently exist, it is extremely financially beneficial for people who own property in a neighbourhood to block future development, as preventing density helps to suppress supply and place a floor under home prices.
The only real way to “change minds” is to create laws at higher levels (Ie citywide, and more importantly, provincially) which bypass hyper-local control mechanisms and NIMBY behaviour that is driven by financial self interest.
That requirement might shift in a future world where NIMBYism, in all its forms, is considered socially unacceptable, but today it has to start with politicians changing laws.
Until then, we’re stuck with the status quo.
Totally agree. Point was reached right when you moved in.
I wouldn’t base a housing needs assessment on it, but why is Victoria supposed to be building 7 times the housing when they’re only twice as big? Oak Bay is having the bar lowered a lot just because they didn’t build anything for decades. That’s fine, but long run I think they need to think about building where the land is rather than increasing pressure to bulldoze 4 floor apartment to build 12 floors. Much less displacement if we turn single family into 4 or 6 floors.
There are two different estimates of housing need. One that the city did, and one that the province did. The target is 75% of the higher one. . See the chart below. Oak bays target is roughly their housing needs assessment, the other two are well above.
Also note there’s a lot of things wrong with the housing needs reports. They put a lot of weight on past growth rates and then extrapolate out. This was identified as a problem in the opening doors report.
Yeah will be interesting to see how prescriptive they are about those targets or if they’re more interested in overall numbers
While condo values seem to be stable in the core, this week has had 87 new listings and 51 price decreases all of which are outpacing sales during the same period.
That’s interesting to me, in that in other years sellers would have just taken their condos off the market. Still might happen as we get closer to December. Although the graph of sales by price range seems to have shifted to the left and that might mean we will see a slight drop in condo prices in the next month by a few percent. Maybe to price levels exhibited in the fall of 2021. Which are still good prices for condos.
Land base alone cannot be a fair comparison when setting housing targets? There was a whole assessment process and the targets have been set based on 75% each muni’s identified housing need. Is OB’s assessment somehow done with different and unfair criteria? Seems to be what you are saying.
Interesting that the housing target guidelines include a recommended number of units by size (one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom), rental versus owned units, below-market rental units and units with on-site supports. These guidelines include more than 16,800 below-market rentals.
HFL’s response to the announcement. Worth noting that CMHC estimates of what’s required to address the supply gap are 27,000 for those 3 munis combined, while the targets only add up to 10k
I don’t think the numbers do work for 3-4 plexes – been studies on that. Maybe the numbers and motivations mesh when you are talking about a suite for your adult child or aging parent or apartment buildings over a certain size.
I remember the “stop overdevelopment” signs plastering Oak Bay around the United Church when it tried to develop affordable housing with BC Housing on part of its property. They eventually voted to pause it due to backlash and reduction in number of units making it uneconomic despite already owning the land.
https://www.oakbaynews.com/news/oak-bay-united-church-votes-to-pause-any-development-496481
Sure this problem is decades in the making and it will be years before the policies are fixed (and more years before the housing is actually built to catch up)
But you can’t deny the political wind on housing has changed radically in just the last few months
Example: Metro Vancouver proposed increasing their DCCs substantially today. This adds thousands to every new unit but it’s such an arcane detail that it wouldn’t have even made the local paper before. https://x.com/LeoSpalteholz/status/1706681253448343568?s=20
Now: Within hours the new housing minister cancels funding announcements to 2 metro van municipalities until they can review the impact . https://x.com/SeanFraserMP/status/1706772691049464203?s=20
There are few to no examples of properties with four to six units selling in Victoria. There have been some conversions of character homes on standard sized lots. If there was a market for them, I would think that we would have seen more of them in the city. The cost to buy one would be close to $2,750,000 today and one would need to get about $140,000 a year in rent.
I don’t think the demand or the rate of return on them is enough.
It’s a nice thought that this will save the missing middle but I don’t think it’s practical. My opinion is we have to think bigger and that’s buildings with 75 units and more. That might mean re-zoning entire city blocks to hi-rise. Leveling an entire city block of houses. I think it would be better for the city just to blanket zone entire city blocks for hi-rise and let the developers have at it.
I must say I am so surprised, not. I’ll be further surprised if they actually hit their easy target.
It’s public information what gets approved? The reason I question your “examples” is I regularly watch meetings in various municipalities and not much has changed. View Royal being the worst right now, voting down OCP compliant rental projects on busy roads for no good reason.
I think it’s about to get a lot simpler on the zoning front. The other roadblocks will no-doubt remain until they fail to meet the targets. OB will be able to meet the majority of their target by upzoning the area around OB lodge / OB high for 5/6 story builds. I have high hopes they’ll upzone SFH to 3/4-plex, but they may see that as political suicide.
As for projects being approved in Saanich – I’m only passing on what I’ve heard from someone in the thick of it. A few examples were mentioned but I’m not going to call them out here.
True, on both accounts.
My view is that, in every decent-size city, there comes a point at which additional people at the park, at the beach, on the road, on the bus, on the train, at the store, at the mall, in the movie theatre, on the hiking trail, at the ferries, at the coffee shop serves to worsen the overall experience of living in that city rather than enhance it.
Global population will peak and start declining in the next couple decades so we will be in that world soonish. Of course national population policies may not match the global picture.
So long as they increase it by the same %s next year, we’re all good.
Yes. My vision would be to house everyone who needs a house today (everywhere in Canada) while we somehow work toward a system that doesn’t require most cities (and our overall population) to grow in perpetuity. A steady-state system.
The word “good” is a subjective term to describe Oak Bay. I would say that there are a significant amount of properties in Oak Bay that are under utilized in that most of the property’s worth is situated in the land component.
The older houses are cute but they tend to be pre 1970’s and small in finished floor area with the improvements adding marginally to the value of the property as a whole say 25% and less. While a larger and newer homes with a suite may contribute 100 to 150 percent to a property’s value.
I think one of the problems Oak Bay has is that there are not many areas of land that are good candidates for multi-family housing as there are few significant arterial roads. Multi-family buildings tend to be built along arterial roads as the cost to assemble land is lower.
There are definite challenges in trying to build multi-family in Oak Bay. To build mid rise multi-family in Oak Bay either as a strata or rental would make the price per square foot to sell the units astronomically high. And it would be a challenge for a developer to get that price or rent for them.
Oak Bay is a bit of an enigma. There are areas in Oak Bay that should be re-developed but it is cost prohibitive to do so.
Eventually, it will happen but at this time it would require a giant leap for Oak Bay to say blanket zone neighborhoods around Fort and Foul Bay to say 20 storey hi-rises to encourage re-development of these underutilized properties.
A person from Alberta visits Victoria and spots a hotdog that looks delicious. He pays with a tap and settles down on the breakwater to dine. Unfortunately, due to his provincial heritage he has no experience of envy-driven expropriatory coercion so he is very surprised to be confronted by two enforcement officials who say that his Interac debit card has been tracked to Edmonton and he must pay a fine for taking food directly from the mouths of hard working British Columbians.
To twist the knife they say they can’t help but notice from his records that he had a hotdog in Canmore the week before.
Really? That is the main problem?
You do realize that there are many cities that do not have the same rate of growth as Victoria right? And yet there is still a housing and homelessness crisis. I can think of Penticton to start. Has only 6000 people more than 40 years ago and all of the same problems as Victoria. Or how about the growth in the population in qualicum beach and parksville without any corresponding economic growth – just seniors looking for better weather…
Housing prices have outpaced wages by a lot almost everywhere in BC and we have underinvested in subsidized and affordable housing and zoning has restricted the building of townhouses and condos. Airbnb has also contributed by removing rental housing from the market.
So the median income earner who could buy 30 years ago now can’t afford a house and there are no affordable rentals and few townhouses to buy. Now the median income earner can’t afford a townhouse either.
Victoria has had a higher rate of population growth but you are not going solve anything by blaming an economic system when our housing policies are very clearly flawed.
If I were Oak Bay and wanted to hit their housing targets without impacting the vast majority of their single family neighbourhoods I would:
There should be no shortage of demand from builders if the approval is certain, and it prevents them from having to fight lot by lot in every neighbourhood
The main problem I have diagnosed is bigger than everyone else’s main problem, namely an economic system requiring perpetual population growth.
Majority of Uplands is private land with houses or parkland. Where is the vacant land?
Agreed that Oak Bay has been very difficult on the multi projects that have come forward. And neighbours have been even worse. I cannot believe that Oak Bay Ave project that got kyboshed because of a tree. Annoying: https://www.timescolonist.com/islander/oak-tree-crux-of-oak-bay-condo-debate-4653603
This is a muni that may end up benefitting from ministerial orders under the Housing Supply Act. Ie. their bylaws and processes scrutinized and orders issued to amend them and the bylaws.
Majority of the Uplands is vacant.
It has everything to do with the fact that multifamily is banned on the vast majority of the land, and the last person to try to build multifamily housing is on year 10 and god knows how many millions in costs trying to get it approved. Oak Bay built a lot of multifamily 60 years ago. Then they banned it and it stopped getting built. No mystery there.
I think it may have something to do with the fact that Oak Bay has:
Those targets seem fairly high for these conditions to me, but I’m no expert. Most of Oak Bay is already good condition, expensive, single family housing. I don’t think there is an economic case for redevelopment. Maybe the only way they can fast-track more units is to make it really easy and fast to suite or infill existing SFHs. Not sure what the uptake will be. Oak Bay only has about 8000 dwellings, including condos and townhouses, total.
One site they are looking at for intensive mixed use is the UVic property at 2400 Cedar Hill.
https://www.oakbay.ca/municipal-services/planning/housing-oak-bay
and
But on a percentage basis lol
What a joke. The municipality doing the least gets to continue to do the least.
Quite a bit higher than the housing targets the municipalities made for themselves. Except Oak Bay gets off easy, they only have to meet their own target
I wonder how much has been built on average each year for the municipalities for the last five years? How much more is this?
Here are the provincial housing targets and how much each municipality needs to build per year.
Speaking of bureaucracy just the legal and accounting fees added every year due to new government policies are getting kind of out of hand imo…..another $600 invoice and somehow we are going to have affordable housing, right.
“We have now completed the assessment and preparation of the Underused Housing Form and
Election-2022 for your Company for all xxxxxxxxxx properties. We have filed the Tax Department copies
with Canada Revenue Agency on your behalf. Enclosed are copies of the confirmation for your
records.
There are no taxes due.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require any further information in this regard.
Yours truly,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chartered Professional Accountants LLP”
I literally once ran into a retired fellow on Bank Street in Fairfield that in a matter of three sentences managed to voice his opposition towards any sort of development/density in Victoria and at the same time complained about the rent his daughter was paying in Vancouver. People are just too dumb to get it. You cannot have a logical argument with them because foreign buyers or some other non-sense is the problem.
I don’t see hope personally. You and Leo should team up to try and build a sixplex in the City of Victoria and then report back if you are still optimistic on the housing situation changing 🙂
It isn’t just attitudes but also the ever growing bureaucracy and I haven’t seen many examples in history where bureaucracy has been scaled back. Not really possible to build “affordable” anything when you need 16 consultants on every project, 14 being totally useless checklist paperwork.
So the first one will be approved by 2025, nice and by 2027 we will have three sixplexes built.
Problem is the average person is a NIMBY and the average person votes and our elected officials are a reflection of the people. Politicians will bring in policies to address the housing crisis that optically try to appease those pro-housing and don’t piss off NIMBYs, too much. You get something that doesn’t actually help to address the problem.
I haven’t bought anything since the strata property act was amended. I do have my eyes on one specific building with a special assessment coming up. Just waiting for the right unit/price/timing/situation.
Previously, I’ve also never bought anything completed as a condo investment. I’ve always looked for pre-sales that are 2 to 3 years out so I don’t need to outlay the capital beyond the deposit. The longer the projected completion is, the better and then let statistics over the last 50 years of market appreciation go to work.
I posted the local survey data a few articles back that showed investor percent of purchases have declined after rates started rising. However oddly enough nationally I believe the rate is still increasing, but I don’t know how they define investor (may just be anyone buying a home while still owning a different one).
I had two hotdogs for lunch yesterday and wow were they ever good.
However, I have realized since then that hotdogs are unhealthy and that their production leads to global warming, therefore i will mobilize my neighbours to fight against any more hotdogs being made.
As I’ve posted before, we did this starting more than 10 years ago when it was apparent that prices were increasing more than incomes. When I first started talking about multi-gen housing or planning for housing for children many posters thought it was ludicrous and overkill and fraught with intergenerational drama. But attitudes have shifted.
We now house 3/4 adult children, one family friend, and will house extended family within the next couple of years at very affordable rates. Zero drama. However, just yesterday I got notice from my adult child’s lovely roommate of two years. She is moving back to Alberta because she is not sure she can make it in Victoria without a family doctor and is worried about never being able to buy a home. I don’t have a way to fix that – government has to get on this. More than half of my childrens’ friend’s have left Victoria btw.
There needs to be a shift in attitudes for homeowners who think people should just take care of themselves and their neighborhood should not change at all. If you look at the income data, rental rates, vacancy rates, housing prices, appreciation rates, and interest rates you’ll see it is not a reasonable expectation.
Your opposition to “over development” and appreciation-based housing equity has come at the cost of housing affordability for people you care about, including your children. It erodes the value of an education and a job, and housing instability is really bad for mental health. Your home will not insulate you from a lack of doctors or nurses or other people who provide you the services you need. It will not stop the increase in homelessness or crime and general misery.
I don’t know that the situation is hopeless but it is very tough out there right now and won’t improve quickly – but I do think attitudes will shift slowly. The scale is so significant that it has become a recognized crisis and laws and policies are changing. I think we need wartime measures type of actions to address it.
Hi Leo, have you done any analysis that indicates this statement to be true?
” In a year of rapidly rising rates, investors have been sidelined”
Thank-you for your time.
Edit: ahh never mind Peter already cornered the market on hot dog jokes.
Let’s say there are only hotdogs to eat. Now let’s see how society does when some people have lots of hotdogs and others have none. Oh, wait…
No, we aren’t trying to convince any NIMBYs, that is pointless.
What we’re trying to do is
1. Bring on more pro-housing voices so that it’s not just NIMBYs at the hearings.
2. Make regulatory change to end our discretionary approval process for most projects so NIMBY voices aren’t as powerful.
The first is happening, and I remain very hopeful on the second. Pro-housing reforms are happening all over the country.
3 applications, but yes it’s way too restrictive. Changes coming (still not enough) on the 28th
100%. Work for the change but don’t rely on it.
There’s a common objection to building that goes something like this “I see a lot of condos being built and prices are expensive, clearly it doesn’t help to build more housing”
My analogy was:
“Yesterday I made 6 hot dogs for 6 people.
Today I made 8 hot dogs for 10 people.
I made more food so I don’t understand why people went hungry.
Maybe making more food doesn’t help?”
Let’s make as many hotdogs as there are people here who want to eat them, and we’ll see how every aspect of life in Victoria will improve and improve and improve!
It’s not like I can go to other countries and just buy a bunch of hotdogs. Just saying.
You didn’t buy anything though? Risk of those old buildings not worth it?
Specific examples of these projects?
A foreigner eats a hot dog, since I also eat hotdogs I must tax him 20%.
I heard oak bay will be told 600 new units (I think I heard 2028 deadline). Apparently projects are getting approval (in Saanich, specifically) that would never have had a second look a year ago.
The zoning will be changing “fast”, which may well ignite another building boom. Will be interesting to watch.
I line up with 10 other locals to buy a hot dog, and just as it’s my turn, a foreign buyer comes out of nowhere, grabs my hot dog, and squirts mustard all over me as he runs away
Can someone please restate the hotdog example?
800,000 foreign students might not be buying homes as I initially stated, but they are putting pressure on the rental markets that increases the value of existing housing. So indirectly, foreign money (it’s not cheap going to school in Canada) is driving up the price of all housing. Victoria might not be the best example of foreign buyers (students) influencing the real estate market.
I’ve been in over 1,000 transactions in Victoria and I’ve never come across a foreign buyer personally, see Leo’s stats, very rare.
Here is how realty works. This happens often. I was working with a young couple (doctor + teacher) during the over ask chaos. Multiple times we came out of the home and they ran into their work colleagues going in for a viewing after them. Then after trying to outbid eachother they probably sit together at the hospital/school and complain about how foreign buyers are driving up prices.
We need more housing which will never ever come in adequate numbers for a very very simple reason. The average person/voter doesn’t not grasp Leo’s hot dog example.
We are simply screwed. I applaud Leo for what his is doing, but nothing will actually change. I have neighbors in my building that buy into (a near new 17 story building in Vic West) and then join the “StopBayviewRezoning” movement, you should check out their FB page. There is no hope of changing attitudes as people simply have no common sense on average and you can’t have a logical argument with them about why we need housing. Leo is there a NIMBYer you’ve been able to convert into pro-housing with logic?
What did I say about the missing middle on HHV before it was even voted through? 5 years before anyone receives keys to a missing middle project unit. We are now starting to approach a year with zero applications. If these amendments are voted through maybe we get three applications next year, maybe. Then add 18 to 24 months for those application to jump through the hopes and actually get a building permit. Will be 20 to 30 years before we see multiple MM projects on one block, aka the average person opposing missing middle will either be dead or in a nursing home. If I am personally lucky I’ll be waiting for a hip replacement.
I think the best one can do is come to their senses and just recognize the situation is hopeless and put your family and kids in the best possible position to afford something very unaffordable one day. You have to recognize that nothing will actually change and come up with a strategy to profit from the stupidity. I have zero faith in the province rolling out anything actually tangible. Someone can call me out when some sort of mandated density gets built in Oak Bay.
I believe this is likely the biggest factor. If and when interest rates drop in the future it will be like lighting a rag covered in gasoline on fire and investors will be more inclined to dive into 70s/80s Oak Bay condo buildings.
We are going to end the year with the lowest yearly sales in the last 10 years on a record amount of real estate agents (1644 down from a peak for 1649). Tough times in the industry for many yet I see ZERO creativity. In a market like this a new realtor evening copying something like mere postings could really carve out a name for themselves and do really well. How many local agents offering mere postings? I am the only one I can think of out of 1644, lol.
Leo- What were September sales in 2019-2021? Thanks.