Attached is the Average House Price Graph from The Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board from 1977 until October 2008. After a significant downward fall, the median house price took an upward turn in October. This could be an up before another fall but the key takeaway is "real estate always goes up over time". The other thing to consider is that this shows the trend line not the absolute prices.

Attached is a graph showing Year to Date Listings vs. Sales for 2008 (up to and including statistics for October 2008). We are up in listings and about 68% down in sales. Translation: There is tons of opportunity out there for buyers and investors!!! Sellers hang onto what you have if you can.

Listings for October 2008 were only slightly higher than October 2007 but in comparing sales month to month, sales were down approximately 45% from 3028 units last October to 1364 units this past October.

September saw 1811 more listings on the market than August 2008. Sales remained slow with only 17 more units sold in September over August.

Listings in August were down from July and Sales were also down from July.

Attached is the Housing Price Index for July 2008 which is provided by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

The chart shows up to date information on current median prices by area for attached, detached and apartment properties. The chart also shows the 1 year change, 3 year change and 5 year change.

 

Similar to last month listing supplies are still up (although there was a small decline in active listings in July over June) and demand is still down. Click on the graph to the right to analyze supply vs. demand for July 2008 in comparison to July 2007.

The market has shifted to more of a Buyer’s market than we have seen in years. One of the major factors contributing to the shift from a Seller’s to Buyer’s market is that Supply is up significantly over last year at the same time.

The Economist Intelligence Unit, an international business intelligence firm and a unit of the Economist Group graded 127 cities on 40 indicators in 5 groups including stability, health, care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

The survey is part of a Worldwide Cost of Living Survey and Vancouver ranked first for the second year in a row.

The top ten cities were rated as follows: