Sluggish start

 

I was surprised to look at the stats today for February. While I personally have been quite busy and REALTORS® I am talking to are saying they are busy, the stats are painting a different picture.

 

Personally, I believe it is too early in the year to draw conclusions. I think we can surmise that continuing signs of recovery would be very welcome. Currently the Okanagan offers some incredible values despite the “white noise” that we are still over-priced. From an investment point of view both in the residential and resort sector there are opportunities allowing rentals to make sense whereas a few years ago the numbers clearly were not working unless you paid a large amount of cash down for a property.

 

Looking at residential single family sales for the month, we see a drop in sales month over month last year of nearly 13%. The important consideration, not unlike the stock market is that when volumes of sales are so low, (114 last month) a small change in the numbers can mean a large percentage difference. In this instance, we sold 4 less homes per week than last year which equated to an almost 13% drop.

 

The better news is pricing (although we struggle with the same lack of volume) would appear to be holding quite steady. Apartments and townhouses showed a slight improvement on median price over last year while single family homes showed a slight drop. Again, I would caution against reading anything in to this at the moment with such a low volume of sales, but there is no doubt it is an indicator. 

 

Average number of days to sell is hovering somewhere between three and four months so be careful if you are advised your home will roll out of the door in a matter of weeks when it is listed.

 

If there was some good news this week, it was with the stock markets. The world is buoyed by stock market data whenever it reaches positive territory which has always confused me... is it investor confidence or manipulation? As the Dow Jones sailed into record territory the TSX closed higher. Despite what my personal feelings are, it is reported as an increase in confidence in recovery in the North American housing market in particular and providing we continue to see this news reported, it will have an impact on consumer confidence moving forward.

 

The other good news, unsurprisingly is the Bank of Canada at its latest meeting this week has agreed to leave interest rates unchanged. 

 

Maybe the spring weather will bring a cheerier set of stats for us to review.