Market Anomalies in 2020 

HOT OR NOT? - THE MARKET IS STILL WEIRD!
Happy Thursday everyone, and welcome back to this week's installment of the Mcinnes Marketing Minute. Brought to you by …... Your friendly neighborhood Realtors! Well technically ‘Realtor’ as Jay is away this week!

Today we want to discuss a strange phenomenon taking place in the market currently. To put it frankly, some areas of the market are “NOT so hot right now” (shout out all our Zoolander fans!)

Yes, this may not seem quite so weird to you, but let’s break it down a bit more. So let’s start with a recap. In case you’ve been hidden under a rock so far this year, in March we were hit with the infamous Covid-19 lockdown. It shut down the shop per se, and we saw a substantial drop in April home sales and inventory levels. Since then, we’ve seen constant improvements each month, to a point we are trending more towards balanced numbers and some places are selling pretty quickly again with a lot of competition.

So if we look at the sales-to-active listings ratio, it’s been increasing month-over-month since April 2020. This would suggest things are on the up and we are heading towards a recovery. Whether that continues to pre Covid levels is yet to be seen, but balanced territory certainly is becoming more and more the case. After all, new inventory is slowing down, and buyer demand is increasing.

So with the numbers moving in this direction, why are we experiencing some outright ODD situations in the market.
For example:

  1. Particular areas seem to be extremely quiet right now. Take Central Lonsdale in North Vancouver. You can find pretty new 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms with views for just over $1,000,000 right now. Yet when we call the agent to discuss activity, we are there first or second showing after a month!! We’re not talking trashed units, levvies coming up and so on, no these are well maintained, modern homes with views. Yet they are just sitting there. This is the same for some 1 bedrooms in the area too.

  1. DOM - Days on market is a key factor people look at in real estate. As a rule of thumb, if something is sitting on the market for an extended period of time, typically more negotiation is available, or a price reduction is about to occur.….. Well it’s not uncommon to see a listing on for two or three months with no price reductions, then all of a sudden it’s gone in multiple offers, close to asking price.

  1. Fast Sales - On the flip side. We just sold a Deep Cove home in 7 days with multiple offers. Not to mention, said unit has a fixed term lease until Aug 31, 2021! Sold at market value with minimal renovations. It’s not uncommon for these types of leased homes to be on the market for 100, 200+ days usually. For comparison, we sold another unit in that building mid last year that was vacant and cheaper, yet took months. 

These are just a few examples. Yet they are happening across the city in various pockets. Downtown's 2 bedroom, 2 bathrooms seem to be playing by unknown funky rules right now too.

The difficult thing about this conversation is it’s not based on the numbers. As most of you know by now, when the statistics for the month are released, they are based on Greater Vancouver as a whole. Typically that can be broken down into areas (Vancouver, Burnaby etc) but these odd encounters seem to be happening in pockets, within pockets. 

The goal of this video, unfortunately, is not to explain why this is happening, but more so to bring it to your attention. In reality it could be a number of things taking place - fear of Covid in certain areas, delayed spring markets and so on.

No, the goal of this blog is to ask you to broaden your minds. Seeing a listing on the market for two months does not necessarily mean it’s bad. In the same breath it doesn’t mean you have all the time in the world to make a decision either. Competition is always around the corner.
Sellers - Don’t try and test the market right now. Some units are priced very acutely, yet are still low on activity. Also don’t be so quick to give up/give in. We are playing by the unknown POST PANDEMIC’ rules right now and depending on the buyers, they are at different levels of the game.

We’d love to hear some feedback from you guys on some of the oddities YOU are seeing in the market right now. Send us your stories to the contacts below!

Until next week,

Jay Mcinnes
T: 604.771.4606
jay@mcinnesmarketing.com


Ben Robinson
T: 604.353.8523
ben@mcinnesmarketing.com
 

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