According to reports in the local Victoria newspaper, overall sales in the Greater Victoria Area were up in February about 63% over January, which is encouraging economic news for everyone. This report has a slightly narrower focus, covering only previously owned single family homes located within the core area of Victoria (which includes Victoria, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, View Royal, and Saanich). It will be interesting to see how it compares with the overall figures in the newspaper.
Beginning with the year-to-year figures for listings and sales, total listings in the last 12 months are still up by a small margin over the prior year, a fact attributable mainly to the very robust number of listings that hit the market in early 2008. As you would expect, the converse it true for sales. That is, sales for the last twelve months are down by a significant margin from the prior year.
Comparing quarterly figures, both listings and sales were down from last year, but not that far below the figures for the corresponding three month period in 2007.
Figures are summarized in the Year Over Year Comparison (Chart 1) and the Three Month Comparison Charts (Chart 2), below.
As noted last month, the spread between listings and sales increased steadily last year, peaking at 1,815 in December. In January of this year, the spread decreased by a small margin, and it would have been nice to see that trend continue. It didn’t, and instead increased back up to about 1,852.
But here is some encouraging news. The annual increase in spread between listings and sales is not attributable to events in February: single month figures for both listings and sales increased, but notably, sales increased more than listings (up by about 35% for this market segment). The same holds true for three month figures: listings rose to 488 from 472, while sales rose by about 35 units.
You can see what I’m getting at from Chart 4, which tracks single month listings and sales for two years. While I would have anticipated a stronger showing on the listing side of the house, the increase in sales is a positive indicator in terms of sales to listings. . It’s interesting that on a three month rolling average basis, the trend line for the sales to listing ratio (not charted) has been steadily up for the past four months. Considered in isolation, that would be a factor tending to suggest a slowing of sale price decreases.
As usual, the next three charts measure various prices, from a monthly and a three month rolling average perspective (Chart 5 shows median selling price, Chart 6 depicts average prices, and Chart 7 compares average selling prices with assessed values for the corresponding period).
The three month median price rolling average dropped to $500,00 in February from $503,300 in January, and so continues it’s downward path. It’s now down about 15.1% from its high of $589,900 in the spring of 2008, and about 0.9% since January.
The three month rolling value of the average selling price dropped was down a good bit, to $549,000. It’s drop from May 2008 highs is now seems to be hitting about 17%. )But before we get too excited about that, it’s perhaps worth noting that the average assessed value for February was down by over $50,000 from January, so the drop in actual selling price is only partly attributable to market conditions, and partly attributable simply to what sold in February.)
chart 7 shows that monthly and three month rolling averages of salling price to assessed value are roughly equal, the rate of decrease in the ratio seems to be levelling out, and that on average, single family homes are selling for their assessed value.
Just four graphs to go!
In summary, February saw both the number of price reductions and their value (measured in dollars and as a percentage) come down. At the same time, the sales to listing ratio improved. While the average price appeared at first blush to show a significant decrease, for this month, that decrease seems to be more reflective of the particular homes on the market (based on monthly average assessed value) versus overall market conditions. The number of days on market of homes that sold showed no meaningful change of any kind.
All in all, with more positive signs than negative, the figures suggest to me that February may signal a slowing of the downward price movement for pre-owned single family homes in Victoria.
Bye for now,
...Victoria's blogging real estate professional.
Tags: Victoria Home Market Report, Victoria Property Values, Victoria Real Estate
