Happy New Year!
December was a fairly decent month for house sales in the lower mainland. Christmas and New Year’s time was slightly off but that has to be expected. However now it seems like it is really picking up. I had a chat with the Vancouver Board today and a worker there told me that they listed 256 properties yesterday (January 4th, 2011). Now that is a sizable number of listings to come in the marketplace in one day. Does this mean there is going to be a lot of inventory in the market place for the early part of 2011 or does it mean that the market will heat up as there is more choice. Time will tell.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that total sales of detached, attached and apartment properties in 2010 reached 30,595, a 14.2 % decrease from the 35,669 sales recorded in 2009, but a 24.2 % increase from the 24,626 residential sales in 2008. Last year’s number of housing sales was 10.3 % below the ten year average for annual Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) sales in the region. The number of residential properties listed for sale on the MLS® in Greater Vancouver increased 9.7 % in 2010 to 2009.
The previous couple of years have been a bit of a rollercoaster for the real estate market. I would term the present day market as definitely being a steady market. We just sold 6 homes in 11 days – December 26th, 2010 thru January 5th 2011. A big chunk of our listings comes from the FSBO (For Sale by Owner) type of a client. To sell a home without the MLS® exposure is very hard.
There can be a couple of type of MLS® listings. One type of listing is where the seller lists it through a different Board other than the seller’s local Board. Some companies such as Property Guys do this. They list properties from Ottawa and hence the listings never show up for Realtors to see on MLX (this is the website that Realtors use to see listings and it has the commission etc.). The other type of listing is a local listing which shows up on the seller’s local board. For example, a seller has a property in Victoria and the local board for Victoria is the Victoria Real Estate Board. When we do a listing for this client it will show up on the Victoria Real Estate Board and not the Ottawa Board or the Vancouver Board. Similarly a property in Burnaby or Vancouver will be listed through the Vancouver board and not a different Board as the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board is the local board for Vancouver, Richmond, Coquitlam, Burnaby, North Vancouver and West Vancouver.
To list a property through a local board is essential if you would like a Realtor to be looking at the listing or else you are eliminating 75% of the buyers.