Vancouver real estate picture is fuzzy

Spring market eh? Well the chill in the air has cooled our Vancouver real estate market. The only thing red hot this spring is the growth of listings.

Last week we saw the sell/list ratio strengthen over early May, although not significantly. Let's see if we can get a healthy S/L for June.

Sales are down a startling 29% compared with May 2007, and even dipped under last month’s sales. For some perspective last year May 07 sales gained 28% over April 07 sales.

We started 2008 with slightly less inventory than 2007.We are currently up 39% over last year, and 69% over May 30th 2006.

What are you seeing out there? Keep on posting!

If May 30 data (105% sell/list) is a precursor of what is to come in June, we may need to wait a lot longer for a buyer's market. Also in a buyer's market, there should not be any listing that would sell over ask. The fact that we keep on seeing listing that sold >5% over ask tells you that we have yet to reach a buyer's market.

What is shocking is the implied inventory from the most recent data for the FV.

56*260 = 14,560
10,539/14,560*12 = 8.7 months

Those figures are absolutely terrible, and much worse than the implied months of inventory for the GVRD. Should take a look at the price declines that will inevitably start occurring in the FV as a precursor of what is to come in the GVRd.