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The Real Estate Clock: What time is it in our Market? The Groundhog was correct: We seem to be having an early Spring Market!

February 9th, 2024
Happy February! We have made it through January and we are seeing a lot more people out looking for homes than we saw in December and the preceding months. The buyers are not necessarily buying but are definitely looking! The weather is warmer than expected and the number of buyers are higher than expected....so the groundhog may be right: we may be seeing an early Spring market. The impact ...

The Real Estate Clock: What time is it in our Market? Summer was SLOOOWWWW but Fall should be better!

September 8th, 2023
In August we saw what we expect in the summer: not much in the way of activity. Although our part of the world is gorgeous in the summer, many people leave town or spend their time at the beach. Few are paying attention to real estate. While the numbers below may be a bit misleading (they say "UP" a lot) that is because they are comparisons with last year's even slower August. While increases ...

The Real Estate Clock: What time is it in our Market? May stats looked good but things have changed since the May long weekend

June 8th, 2023
Since the beginning of 2023, there have been a lot more buyers in the market than there have been sellers. This resulted in a substantial number of homes selling at great prices, often with multiple offers. This was in contrast to last fall where some of the same houses were not seeing any activity. By early this year buyers seemed to have recovered from the shock of higher interest rates and ...

The Real Estate Clock: What time is it in our Market? Seems like March all over again...

May 9th, 2023
In this newsletter last month, I noted that we were experiencing low home listing numbers and high demand AND that prices had started to inch up from where they had been. This upward price trend, while not dramatic, has continued in April. While most home prices were still not at peak levels (and in some areas still a LOT less than peak) there were also many selling at or close to where they ...

TIMING is EVERYTHING in Real Estate!

April 26th, 2023
Did you know that the best times to sell a home in our area are from the end of January to the end of June and from the second week of September to the middle of December?This applies even to waterfront homes; while people often think the hot weather helps sell waterfront homes, the good weather actually lowers the demand for ALL types of homes. Many buyers are on vacation NOT looking at hous ...

The Real Estate Clock: What time is it in our Market? Record low inventories continue BUT prices now trending UPWARD

April 12th, 2023
Last month I noted that we were experiencing low home listing numbers and high demand. Normally this scenario would push prices up but, surprisingly, prior to this month prices were still trending downward. The stats do tend to lag and I suspect that was the case in February. It felt like the market was better but the numbers didn't reflect that. Now by the end of March, as the available home ...

The Real Estate Clock: What time is it in our Market? Homes are selling slowly...prices continue to trend downward

February 6th, 2023
As mentioned in January's newsletter, last year we transitioned from one of the hottest real estate markets in history to one of the slowest. We have seen yet another interest rate increase last month and that has added to the significant declines in sales volume and prices we have been experiencing since last Spring. Forecasts are for those trends to continue through this Spring and possibly ...

The Real Estate Clock: What time is it in our Market? New Year; New Assessed Values; New Prices.

January 11th, 2023
A lot happened last year: we transitioned from one of the hottest real estate markets in history to one of the slowest. We also saw at the end of last year andthis month, various legal changes designed to assist renters and home buyers. Please see last month's newsletter for information on those legal changes HERE December housing numbers Interest rates and lack of buyer confidence continue ...

Assessed values are apples; Market values are mangoes

January 4th, 2023
The tax assessments are out and they are, as the BC Assessment Office warned in the news last month, higher than what homes will sell for (market value) in most cases.  Receiving a high assessed value leads some property owners to believe that their homes are worth more than they could sell for in today's market. I have had some clients calling and they cannot believe their homes would sell a ...

The Real Estate Clock: What time is it in our Market? Time for investors and other buyers; still good prices for sellers

December 12th, 2022
A lot has happened in the last month with more changes to come. We have a new premier who brought in new housing rules, and we will likely have another interest rate hike this week. These things are affecting our real estate market. New laws affecting strata properties (condominiums) Before looking at the sales data from November, for anyone who has not heard, there were significant changes ...

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