Some of you may have noticed that I didn't have time to write my blog last week. I couln't have said it better than the asisstant of an agent in the Okanagan said it this week, when she claimed her office was in the middle of a "listings frenzy" and had over 52 listings as opposed to their normal 18 or so. At Waterfront West, we have been equally as busy with over 70 new properties on the site in the last week. It seems as though the market is rapidly turning into a buyer's market. A nice change for those buyers who have been waiting by the sidelines and refusing to give in to the pressure of bidding wars and "no subject" offers. Judging by our site traffic (which is currently forecast to be abour 4, 000 unique visitors more than last July), those buyers are still out there, but just taking thier time to make a careful purchase.
Landcor came out yesterday with their Quarterly Residential Sales Summary for 2008. The major highlights of the report showed that sales dollar value has declined in three areas: Vancouver Island, Fraser Valley and BC North/Northwest, while Greater Vancouver, the Okanagan and the Kootenay regions saw an increase in total sales value compared to the same period in 2007. Overall, total sales value in BC increased 5.6% over 2007 while the total number of actual sales decreased by 11.38%. In addition, of interest to the recreational property market, sales to Albertans decreased by 21% in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period last year.
While you can't argue with the hard stats, we still feel that there is a great deal of interest in BC from Albertans. Stats on our site collected from April -June 2007 and the same period this year show the % of Albertans has only dropped by 4%, and the number of Albertans visiting the site has actually increased year over year from 5734 last year to 5970 this year (same time period mentioned above). Moreover, anecdotally we have Albertan friends who still want to purchase here and are finding competition from other Albertans when they try to make offers. So the Albertans are still out there looking. We can't deny that the Albertan real estate downturn has affected the BC recreational market, but I don't think it has dampened the desire of Albertans who want to purchase property in BC or retire here-perhaps just delayed things a bit and lowered their purchasing power (for those dependent on the sale of their own home to buy here).
According to a BCREA news release this week, gas and food prices are slowing home sales as buyers take a wait and see approach to purchasing in the current housing market. Despite residential unit sales decreasing 31% from May 2007, overall average prices in B.C. are still up 6 percent from lastyear. In the meantime, major banks raised their mortgage rates by 1/2 percent last week, which may add to the slow down.
So what does this mean for the recreational market? Judging on traffic to the site (which is still well above last year's numbers) and email inquiries to our sellers, well-priced properties are still creating quite a stir. We have also seen this in the local market in Courtenay. I believe the key to selling right now is for sellers to price their home competitively. It seems there are still a lot of buyers out there who are taking their time to purchase, unless they see a home/property they feel is exceptional value. When a property like this comes up, it still gets snapped up and in some cases, there are even still bidding wars.
So what is a seller to do? If you purchased a few years ago, no doubt, your home value has increased a large percentage already so make sure your property is show room perfect, follow some staging tips, and price competitively. Before you list, go to some open houses in the neighbourhood and check out the competition. Imagine yourself as a buyer-would your home stand out as an exceptional value when compared to the others?
Finally, advertise, advertise, advertise (on Waterfront West-subliminal message). But seriously, make sure that your home is out there-on the internet (in more places than one preferably), in the local real estate paapers and anywhere else you can think of. For recreational properties, reaching an international audience may start to become more important again as local buying slows down. Our stats show, the top 5 countries for buyers (besides Canada) for waterfront real estate in BC are US, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands so if your property is already on our site conrgatulations, you are reaching this audience.
All in all, it's still a great market to be in right now. There are still a lot of buyers milling about but with more properties to choose from and a better chance to make a more informed purchasing decision. Properties that show well and are priced competitively are still selling, so in most cases, sellers can still realize excellent profits given that they purchased their properties a few years back.
