Sunday, October 20, 2019

REBGV October 2019 Projections



Sales are rising to possibly one of the best months of 2019.  It is very rare for October sales to be the year's best sales month (see chart above) and it certainly hasn't happened in recent times.  It is a remarkable turn of events since April and speaks to the drop in prices and seller expectations over the last several months. While sales are being completed under asking in most cases, continued uptick in sales will eventually provide some stability to prices in the near future.  It appears that the annual sales total will be roughly the same as 2018 which was a very low annual sales year.


For the first time since January 2018, we will see a negative change in year-over-year Total Inventory.  Up until April of 2019, it was difficult to see this happening so quickly (including myself).  Rather than seeing sellers panic, we instead saw a very resilient homeowner group that has chosen to stay-put and wait out the market.

For those of you looking to see into the future, one should compare the TI trend between years 2013 and 2019.  Years 2013 and 2019 are both years following a bear market. The changes in TI month-over-month in 2013 and 2019 have been virtually the same this year.  If this continues, one can expect the TI to drop under 9,500 by the end of the year.

It is very possible that the TI trend in 2020 may follow the trend in 2014.  This is assuming that the Justin Trudeau's Liberal government doesn't go ahead with changing the mortgage rules to favour the sellers and increase buyer frenzy.


I have spoken for several months now about the struggling Total Inventory since May due to extremely low New Listings.  This trend continues on for another month but don't be surprised if this  comes to an end soon.  All trends come to an end and we may now start to see New Listings come back up to normal levels (or possibly higher).  It is hard to draw any trends from what happens in November or December as they are dead months for new listings (see chart above) but one can expect the new listings to rise in the new year as many sellers return to the market.


With the MOI now safely under 7 months for 4 months in a row, it is safe to say that we are no longer in the buyer's market.  One may point to the fact that the prices are still on a decline which is true for many of the sales currently.  For an experienced investor, one may take advantage of a situation like this where discounts may be readily available across the city at a time when the MOI is recovering into the balanced territory.

Seller's Market: Under 4 months
Balanced Market: 4-7 months
Buyer's Market: Over 7 months


De-listings for this month will break the typical October trend and fall.  This is fairly unusual for October and has only occurred twice (2011 and 2017) since 2008.  This is due to the higher-than-expected sales for October, 2019.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

September, 2019: REBGV Data

As my projections from middle of the month was spot on, I will not be reposting the official end-of-the-month REBGV charts.  Please see below for the mid-month September projections.