Weekly Market Update, March 16/18

Lord Tunderin' Jesus. We're in trouble.

Looks like condo prices are up compared to this time last year. That's a great sign, as it means young people are optimistic and entering the housing market.

And to GPC last week commenting on data secrecy, the biggest reason I see for this is that if you gave the data to everyone, there may be people who misinterpret it and draw the wrong conclusions. Best to leave it to the professionals, GPC, rather than reading into some bearish trends that aren't there.

Let me state this clearly,

Real Estate professionals are great at helping people buy real estate.
Real Estate professionals are great at helping people sell real estate.

They are also really great at marketing their own services.

One approach they use is to control the industry information that is available to consumers. The Competition Bureau and the Courts in Ontario has proven that withholding this data to be anti-competitive, so really, they should stop doing that.

This will benefit everyone because realtors can get back to doing what they do best, helping people buy and sell real estate, instead spending so much time trying to influence the market.

Tom , how do you know they are young who bought ? And you are right it looks just fine for March , bought popcorn and climbed higher on fence .

Given that it's a four week running total, it should cross the 4 year-over-year low next week unless there's major support this week. And given how bloody stubborn the market has been in the past, once it starts moving it could be a while before it'll find support.

If there are fireworks over the next few weeks, this fall or next spring might just be the time to make a move.

SFH, that is.

Follow the signs. During the weekend Mar17-18, 200+ Open Houses in Edmonton. I have never seen that before ... In regards to asymmetric information in the Market Place. A Canadian shared a Nobel Prized in Economics, some time ago, by observing the price effects on transactions when one party (the seller) has info the other(the (buyer) does not. Anyone with a degree in Kindergarten economics knows who gets screwed in those circumstances. More food for thought: why do you think the average house price, rather than the median is typically quoted? "there are Lies Damn Lies and statistics" ... well at least deliberate misrepresentations. Bank of Canada said some time ago the prices are inflated 10 to 30 percent ... all ye RATS abandon ship, while you still can.

How much do you expect the SFH to correct? My feeling is between 5 and 10%. What do you think?

@Wally The changes to B-20 reduced people's ability to buy more than 5-10%, and prices will match that change to borrowing power because I fully expect that people are going to continue to borrow as much as they can. If that's right, the first and second quartiles will be resilient, the third quartile is in trouble, and the fourth quartile could be mixed (the 90th percentile may be fine because those sort of folks don't have to really borrow, but the 75-90th percentile might hurt badly too).

Hey Baristabob. I'm not sure why, but I am going to help you, since you are off the mark in oh so many ways. First, your economics lesson has little impact on people buying houses if they are planning to live in them. They mostly buy for their own personal reasons, presumably because they want to own their own place in a location of their choice. Its not like trading stocks where you follow all kinds of indicators and buy and sell in hopes of gaining an advantage.
Second, statistics are as good as your ability to understand them. Average is average, median is median. They are different and both provide valuable information. If 10 houses sell, 8 at $400k and 2 at $1 mil, the average is $520 k but the median is $400K. This is information. Both are true, not lies, and describe the situation in different ways.
And finally, when the Bank of Canada talks about house prices, the numbers and trends have been hugely dominated by Toronto and Vancouver. They don't apply in the same way to Edmonton. Most people know this.

Your welcome.

Oops! YOU'RE welcome.