How quickly things can change.

Only a few short months ago, the buyers had a great upper hand with the sellers. Lot's of inventory, good prices, and lot's of time to make a decision.

But, things changed. With good mortgage rates and good choices, smart buyers picked off deals and reduced the inventory. Seller feeling being taken advantage of, decided to wait and hold of listing their properties, creating a shrinking inventory.

As a result the time to sell a condo or a home has been greatly reduced. As an example, Vancouver West condo inventories , in a February report, took 12.4 months to move. This means that an average listing would take a year to sell.

This month, as you can see from the attached chart, the time on the market has been reduced to 4.19 months. According to the Real Estate Pulse, the Vancouver West market has moved into the Sellers market in 4 short months.

Quite a change from the last report in December 2008. This means that as a Buyer, you have to be on your toes and be the first to know about HOT new listings, because the competition is strong.

As we are still in an uncertain market, the prices may not move up in a near future, but it will effect the most popular price ranges in a first time buyer categories. Eventually as the markets and economic conditions improve and the levels of inventory stay low, we will see the price upward movement.

When will that be? No one really knows, but if you are thinking of buying, keep your eyes on the market.

  If you are looking to Buy or to Sell real estate in Vancouver area, give me a call. My consultations are FREE. The benefits to You, may be worth a lot of money.
Call Jeff Stark at 604-506-8481 or email me at jeff@jeffreystark.net

Buyers are on the move. If you are one of them, make sure you are approved, because mortgage rates are on the move also. 

A continued increase in buyer activity over the last four months has resulted in increased home sales and lessened the downward pressure on housing prices in Greater Vancouver.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that the number of residential property sales in Greater Vancouver totalled 3,524 in May 2009, an increase of 17.4 per cent from the 3,002 sales recorded in May 2008, and an increase of 18.9 per cent compared to last month.

Since the beginning of the year, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver has increased 4.5 per cent to $506,201 from $484,211. However, home prices compared to May 2008 levels are down 10.9 per cent.

"The increased level of buyer activity over the last few months has had a stabilizing effect on home prices across our region," Scott Russell, REBGV president said. "MLS® data continues to show a trend toward a balanced market in the region."

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties declined in Greater Vancouver, down 36 per cent to 4,733 in May 2009 compared to May 2008, when 7,390 new units were listed. At 13,641, the total number of property listings on the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) declined 4.7 per cent compared to last month and 16 per cent compared to May 2008.

Sales of detached properties increased 16.5 per cent to 1,402 from the 1,203 detached sales recorded during the same period in 2008. The HPI benchmark price for detached properties declined 11.8 per cent from May 2008 to $680,320.

Sales of apartment properties in May 2009 increased 17.2 per cent to 1,458, compared to 1,244 sales in May 2008. The benchmark price of an apartment property declined 10.2 per cent from May 2008 to $349,987.

Attached property sales in May 2009 are up 19.6 per cent to 664, compared with the 555 sales in May 2008. The benchmark price of an attached unit decreased 9 per cent between May 2008 and 2009 to $435,848.

Bright spots in Greater Vancouver in May 2009 compared to May 2008:

Detached:

Burnaby up 48.9 per cent (140 units sold from 94)

Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows up 13.4 per cent (144 units sold from 127)

North Vancouver up 31.4 per cent (134 units sold from 102)

Port Moody/Belcarra up 52.6 per cent (29 units sold from 19)

Richmond up 14.0 per cent (170 units sold from 142)

Vancouver East up 11.1 per cent (180 units sold from 162)

Vancouver West up 59.5 per cent (193 units sold from 121)

Attached:

Burnaby up 31.5 per cent (96 units sold from 73)

Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows up 43.8 per cent (46 units sold from 32)

North Vancouver up 31.8 per cent (58 units sold from 44)

Vancouver West up 54.5 per cent (102 units sold from 66)

Apartments:

Burnaby up 32.6 per cent (187 units sold from 141)

North Vancouver up 22.6 per cent (103 units sold from 84)

Richmond up 27.4 per cent (200 units sold from 157)

Vancouver East up 28.7 per cent (139 units sold from 108)

Vancouver West up 25.4 per cent (529 units sold from 422)

As per a release from the Real Estate Board ov Greater Vancouver

For more information please contact:
Craig Munn, Assistant Manager of Communications
Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver

If you are looking to Buy or to Sell real estate in Vancouver area, give me a call. My consultations are FREE. The benefits to You, may be worth a lot of money.
Call Jeff Stark at 604-506-8481 or email me at jeff@jeffreystark.net

Here are the average prices by city and province.

Vancouver is still te most expensive and in the eyes of the world the most desirable city to live in.

Most of the prices have come down to close to 2007 levels, but interestingly, both Regina and Saskatoon are way ahead of the 2007 prices.

It is interesting to see that it costs 50% more to live in Yellowknife than in Montreal.

If you are looking to Buy or to Sell real estate in Vancouver area, give me a call. My consultations are FREE. The benefits to You, may be worth a lot of money.
Call Jeff Stark at 604-506-8481 or email me at jeff@jeffreystark.net

Dear Condo Smarts:

Our strata has run into some troubles trying to get the rest of the damages to our building repaired after a fire started in one unit with a meth lab.

The fire caused minimal damage, but the chemicals in the unit contaminated the strata lot and a number of adjacent units, so the city sent an inspector, who ordered the evacuation of eight suites until the restoration was complete.

That was seven months ago. We still don't have all the work done, the restoration cost is more than $400,000 and our insurance does not cover the claim. The owner of the strata lot has not co-operated and the seven other owners are desperate to come back to their homes. Is there any way we can force this to complete?

- TW, Vancouver Island

Dear TW:

Unfortunately, it's impossible to prevent illegal operations in strata lots. Strata corporations can be vigilant by conducting annual mechanical and building inspections of common areas and strata lots, but more important is how you deal with the cleanup after the damage is discovered.

The Strata Property Act gives strata corporations a great deal of power to deal with illegal drug activities resulting in building damage; however, this depends greatly on how the order from the local government is issued for the damages.

Most local governments have bylaws that apply to conditions resulting from grow ops, meth labs and other illegal-drug production activities. When a bylaw-enforcement officer visits a site to inspect the damages, he or she will likely issue an order for the repairs and, as happened in your case, evacuation of any suites that are affected.

It is important for the strata corporation to have proper representation at this time to ensure two steps are taken. The first is that all patent and potential damages are itemized on the order, and the second is that the strata corporation is named on the order in addition to the strata lot owner.

This grants the authority to the strata corporation to proceed with repairs to the strata lot, other affected strata lots and other common areas. The costs may then be liened against the offending strata lot.

This permits the strata corporation to take control over the timely repair and restoration to the strata lots and common areas.

Eventually, the strata corporation may seek an order for sale of the strata lot to cover the costs, and hopefully the restored value will cover your losses.

As in most cases, if your strata corporation does not have insurance coverage relating to illegal drug activities and losses, you will be left as the co-ordinator of the restoration.

Before you sign a blank cheque for restoration, set up the scope of work established by the local government order and obtain quotes to obtain a competitive price.

Restoration costs can easily skyrocket out of control if you don't have a defined scope of construction and fixed price.

When a grow op or meth lab is discovered, immediately contact the police and fire department. Establish a working relationship with your local city bylaw enforcement officer and contact your insurer, your lawyer and any required consultants, such as engineers.

Act quickly and take control of the situation from an informed perspective.

Don't sign blank restoration orders. Obtain competitive bids for the work and have all terms and conditions of the contracts in writing and reviewed by legal counsel before your sign.

 From The Province May 10th edition, by; Tony Gioventu

Tony Gioventu is executive director of the Condominium Home Owners' Association. He welcomes questions at tony@choa.bc.ca

The bad news is still here and all over the newspapers.

Good news is that the sales are up. But what does that mean? If you are a Buyer, are you waiting for the newspapers to give you the "green light" and tell you it's OK to buy now?

Or, if you are a smart Buyer, are you actively looking now? If you are not, you should be.

The magic question, which can never be answered on time, (yeah everybody has 20/20 vision), "Are we there yet?", is still waiting tio be answered.

It will be answered once everybody and their dog know the answer. We should have.......... Ever said that?

I have been telling everyone in my MarketWatch Newsletter, for couple of months to get serious about buying. There is agreat selection and stupidly low interest rates. Can't believe Buyers are still waiting. For what? Once the market bottom is past as the following charts may already point out and economy improves, what do you think the feds are going to do with interest rates?? Ha?

My advice to the Buyers is simple. Get approved, if you haven't already, and get yourself a Realtor to help you find good deals. Don't be to proud, and don't think that you know all the answers. You got better things to do with your life. Let someone else do the dirty work.

Here are some graphs showing the trends in average prices

BURNABY ATTACHED  

 BURNABY DETACHED

NORTH VANCOUVER ATTACHED

NORTH VANCOUVER DETACHED

VANCOUVER APARTMENTS

TRICITIES AREA ATTACHED

TRICITIES AREA DETACHED

So what do all these graphs tell you? Is it time to get serious and start "really" looking?

If you are looking to Buy or to Sell real estate in Vancouver area, give me a call. My consultations are FREE. The benefits to You, may be worth a lot of money.
Call Jeff Stark at 604-506-8481 or email me at jeff@jeffreystark.net