February 2009 Projections

[KopyrightKlepto]

This thread will contain projections for and incite discussion on February 2009 sales, listings, inventory and price information. These projections are based on a linear model driven by the daily stats published by PaulB. The intent is to get an early or predictive feel for how the months numbers may end up, and discuss the impact and ramifications to our local real estate market. Please remember, that all models are wrong, but some models can be useful.

Baseline Data for February 2009 Projections

Prior Month (January 2009):

Listings: 3700
Sales: 762 [1]
Sell/List: 21%
MOI: 19.8 [1]
Actives: 15,064 [1]

Avg Price SFH: $778,194
Avg Price Condo: $384,752

Median Price SFH: 642507
Median price Condo: 329612

** Not finalized. Will update once REBGV published their Jan 2009 numbers.

Prior Year (February 2008):

Listings: 5260
Sales: 2676
Sell/List: 51%
MOI: 4.3
Actives: 11420

Avg Price SFH: $920,644
Avg Price Condo: $450,145

** Feb 2008 was the recorded peak for SFH and Condo average prices.

Data References:

Paul Boenisch, North Vancouver Homes Blog, "Month End Inventory", March 2, 2008
http://paul-northvancouverhomes.blogspo ... ntory.html

REBGV, "February 2008 News Release", March 4, 2008
http://www.relocationbc.com/stats/a1-Fe ... sFeb08.pdf

* Disclaimer: This projection is neither produced nor endorsed by the REBGV.

Edits:
[1] Feb 4, 12:34am - Updated January 2009 active listings and MOI based on Paul's numbers. Updated January 2009 sales to 762, from the REBGV stats pack (down from 764.

[KopyrightKlepto]

It's too early to post a projection, but some commentary is in order.

February is off to an interesting start and looks very different from January from right out of the gate. Both sales and listings for Feb 2 have outpaced any single day in January. The 91 sales booked today is 2.5x the average we saw in January. Compared to what we've seen lately, that seems positively bullish! But, add some year-over-year perspective and you'll see that we'll need to hold a pace of 134 sales per day to match last year with 2676 February sales. So even our bullish day 1 with 91 sales is still 30% off pace ... and personally, I don't think we'll keep that up.

[meeeeeep]

My sense is that we're seeing two things...

1. a few fools rushing in, in response to prices not seen in 2+ years
2. the calm before the spring listing storm

There are tons of expired and terminated listing from the fall that are not yet back on the market.

[freako]

February is off to an interesting start and looks very different from January from right out of the gate. Both sales and listings for Feb 2 have outpaced any single day in January.

It did indeed. It could be the start of a pickup in both. However, I wonder if it was a month end quirk. January ended with a weekend so maybe some pent up sales/listings. Note how active listings actually increased on the first business day of Feb. Has that ever happened before? Today's numbers should give us an idea. Also, will the ONNI "sale" be rung up on MLS. If so, the sales ought to go through around now. In either case, I'd expect both sales and listings to be up as February progresses, though sales will still be down significantly yoy. If they aren't, then the anecdotes of busy open houses observed byTom, Mike and others did translate into higher sales.

[poundcruncher]

Hello all...

quick question. Can anybody point me to a site where I can find sales/listing data for February 2007, 2006 etc. Paul B's site is only to 2006 but I'd like to see how this Feb compares to "regular" months in a balanced market (ie. 1998 - 2002 for example).

Thanks in advance.

[jesse1]

Hello all...

quick question. Can anybody point me to a site where I can find sales/listing data for February 2007, 2006 etc. Paul B's site is only to 2006 but I'd like to see how this Feb compares to "regular" months in a balanced market (ie. 1998 - 2002 for example).

Thanks in advance.

My sales data goes back to '99, pulled from REBGV press releases. Listings data is more sketchy because it was not always tracked in the press releases. Also high listings and low sales go hand in hand because many would-be sellers who do not sell cannot buy either. IMO 2009 is not likely to be a "balanced" market!

Code: Select all

yr/mo   1999   2000   2001   2002   2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008
jan   953    953    1,225    2,248    1,966    1,954    1,681    1,924    1,806    1,819
feb   1,634    1,634    1,781    3,008    2,760    3,066    3,068    2,941    2,859    2,676
mar   2,169    2,120    2,315    3,392    3,304    4,371    3,938    4,033    3,582    2,997
apr   2,017    1,723    2,253    3,785    3,095    4,106    4,043    3,345    3,387    3,218
may   2,068    2,059    2,703    3,429    3,279    3,918    4,434    4,297    4,331    3,002
jun   2,339    1,985    2,831    2,689    3,525    3,501    4,333    3,951    4,244    2,425
jul   2,052    1,654    2,619    2,670    4,023    3,017    3,652    2,732    3,873    2,174
aug   1,928    1,739    2,566    2,468    3,290    2,487    3,649    2,998    3,384    1,600
sep   1,852    1,707    2,155    2,476    3,357    2,853    3,344    2,519    2,776    
oct   1,680    1,765    2,379    2,866    3,765    2,735    3,099    2,722    3,028    
nov   1,775    1,730    2,604    2,555    3,018    2,486    2,938    2,358    2,883    
dec   1,253    1,309    2,394    2,205    2,434    2,065    2,332    1,686    1,897    
TOTAL   21,720    20,378    27,825    33,791    37,816    36,559    40,511    35,506    38,050    19,911


[markx]

Even with upticks at the second half of January, it's still at least a decade low in absolute sales. Adjusted for population, it looks even worse. I can't see sales picking up dramatically in February, adjusted for seasonal changes. In fact, I would be somewhat surprised if February 09 sales is better than February 99. There's just too much bad news on the pipeline.

[jesse1]

To equal '99 there needs to be just over 80 sales per day. As KK has shown there is likely going to be a slight trend upwards in daily sales as the month progresses.

[betamax]

My sense is that we're seeing two things...

1. a few fools rushing in, in response to prices not seen in 2+ years
2. the calm before the spring listing storm

Agreed. A lot of machete-catchers out there who don't even read reports from Royal LePage or BCREA.

Still, sales are far down from last year this time. I've also heard that current homeowners trying to "upgrade" and making offers on bigger places (because prices are such a 'bargain')are stymied when their current home won't sell for anything close to their wishing price. The disappointed fools dodged a bullet and don't even know it.

[KopyrightKlepto]

Probably much too early to provide any real analytical value, but here's where we sit so far:

Projection from 3-Feb-2009 : 2 of 20 days Complete

Listings: 5406 (+3% yoy) (+46% mom)
Sales: 1591 (-41% yoy) (+108% mom)
Sell/List: 29% (-21 pp yoy) (+9 pp mom)
MOI: 11.1 (+159% yoy) (-41% mom)
Actives: 17,589 (+54% yoy) (+23% mom)

Avg Price SFH: $737,183 (-19.9% yoy) (-5.3% mom) (-19.9% from peak)
Avg Price Condo: $340,022 (-24.5% yoy) (-11.6% mom) (-24.5% from peak)

Median Price SFH: $641,317 (-0.2% mom)
Median price Condo: $306,176 (-7.1% mom)

Month to-date:

Total Listings: 525 (Avg 263 per day)
Total Sales: 154 (Avg 77 per day)

[KopyrightKlepto]

However, I wonder if it was a month end quirk. January ended with a weekend so maybe some pent up sales/listings. Note how active listings actually increased on the first business day of Feb. Has that ever happened before?

It looks like the REBGV may have fudged their numbers for Jan 30th. From Paul:

I think the 30th numbers were posted on Sunday the 1st (wasn't me so i'm not positive). So the total inventory number posted reflects the month end expirys. The proper number for the 30th is 15064.

So I now have 3 possibilities for Total Inventory at the end of January.
1. 15,064 - From Paul
2. 14,339 - From the REBGV Dailies for Jan 30 (delayed to Feb 1)
3. 13,669 - From the REBGV January 2009 Stats Report

I trust Paul's number the most and I will update my baseline with this value. It matches the trend proceeding toward the end of January, and keeps expiries consistent to occur after months end, like we usually see. I think (2) is the starting inventory for Feb, not the closing inventory for Jan (the difference being month-end expiries). I bet they closed up early on Jan 30, and didn't get all the listings and sales booked, or publish the numbers. Someone came back in on the weekend to try to clean things up, but ended up giving us inventory for Feb 1 not Jan 30.

Also, I think that (3) is rubbish. We passed this on Jan 6. They likely included only SFH, Attached and Detached properties, and left out lots and other listing that don't fit into the first three categories. I'm not sure why they would have done this and called it "Total Active Listings in Greater Vancouver".

[markx]

Inventory seem to pile on quite nicely along with uptick in sales. If early trends stick like previous months, we should have pretty nice MOI by end of February. As long as MOI is sky high, I can let bull have the benchmark price for a while. No hurry for now.

[monk]

Seems like a death struggle between bears with paws and bulls with horns. Bull horns nick the bears for first blood in Jan i guess.

[freako]

Bull horns nick the bears for first blood in Jan i guess.

Only a flesh wound.

[yogurt]

Bears don't hold short positions in RE. They don't lose anything when the market price goes up, any more than someone who has no position in RBC loses anything when its price goes up.