2015 Sunshine Coast Monthly Sales Stats

[Skook]

October 2015 SC Sales Stats

Sales dropped a tad in October but then everyone was fixated on the federal election, no doubt. You gotta love those ‘strategic’ voting results, eh? So, detached sales dipped, attached sales head steady and land sales gathered steam. Year-over-year land sales made everyone giggle hysterically - up +157% - with detached and attached up a tad, too.

Speaking of attached sales, those year-to-date totals take your breath away, too. After languishing three or more years, townhouse sale are soaring due to a simple reason – they’re dirt cheap! Yep, bargains hunters are having a field day. Total attached sales are up +42% year-over-year.

Residential Sales By Area

Once again, I will leave you to peruse the res sales (all types) by area data. Year-to-date totals have Gibsons thumbing its collective nose at Sechelt with its sales up +39% versus 2014. Total year-to-date sales stand at roughly 877 up +36% compared to 2014.

Single Detached Home Sales

October 2015 a definitely one for the record books – best October detached sales (SDH+MOP) since 2003. On a year-over-year basis Gibsons and Pender Harbour were in the green with Gibsons actually doubling last October’s total. Year-to-date total detached sales stand at roughly 621 - up +26% over 2014.

The SDH median sales price jumped in October due to sales in the higher price ranges ($400,000 - $699,999) and why not since money is cheap (but may not be for long).

Note: the median sales price is my calculation. I remove all ‘1mill+’ detached property sales and include MOP (manufactured on pad) sales. I decided not to include SC Realtor ® Gary Little’s median sales price data this month. If you want to compare (he includes $1mill+ properties and removes MOP), you can visit his stats page.

Sales By Price Range

As a mentioned above, the SDH median sales price jumped this month and the sales by price range table shows why. There were 17 home sales in the $400,000 to $499,000 and 13 in the $500,000 - $599,999 range. Percentage–wise, the $300,000 - $399,999 pie slice is getting smaller.

   
(click on image)

Single Detached HPI & Benchmark Prices

So, the median sales price rose this month reflecting the fact homes in the higher price ranges were selling and yet, the HPI and Benchmark price dropped. Go figure. Is this reflecting that small drop in detached sales since last month? (15 fewer SDH sales and 1 fewer MOP sale). Actually, I’m thinking it might reflect the type of home sold – if inventory is dropping then it might be the older homes getting picked up. Here’s what the MLS ® Home Price Index Realtors ® Guide says:

Quote:The MLS® HPI benchmark prices represent the price of a typical property within each market. The MLS® HPI takes into consideration what averages and medians do not – items such as lot size, age, number of rooms, etc. The most commonly traded set of these attributes describes the composite of the typical or ‘benchmark’ house in a given area. Prices paid for homes with these attributes determine benchmark home prices.

For example, perhaps the basket of features for a typical home in a community includes a 10-year-old, three-bedroom house on a 7,200 square-foot lot, with eight rooms, two bathrooms, a fireplace and a one-car garage. The MLS® HPI creates a benchmark price for the typical home by calculating the contribution that each of these features makes to the price paid.

Average and median prices are affected by the composition of properties sold (e.g. the types of homes by age, area and home type), which changes from month to month. The benchmark price overcomes this issue by keeping the qualities of a typical property constant over time, so its change in value is the result of pure price change (home price inflation or deflation).

Yada, yada, yada – we all know it will likely go up next month and therefore makes no sense for us plebs. Anyways, I was surprised to see that little dip.

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Sales to List Ratios

By now if you’ve been reading my reports since August, you will know there are two types of ‘Sales-to-list‘ ratios used by the REBGV. The sales-to-new listing’ ratio used in its monthly stats package calculations (MLS Listings page) and the ‘sales-to-active listings’ ratio used in the monthly stats package cover letter.

Sales to New Listings Ratio

As you see, on a monthly basis the ratio dropped a tad in October reflecting the similar sales/listing figures – both of which were lower than September’s figures. That being said, the year-to-date totals moved the SC into a “Seller’s Market” for the first time in 8 years which is nicely illustrated in my extraordinarily beautiful chart.

Sales to Active Listings Ratio

Unfortunately, I haven’t an extraordinarily beautiful chart to illustrate this ratio – you’ll have to scroll back to a preceding post for the board's ho-hum version. So, using my “iffy” daily listings figures for October, I get the following results...

Using an October active listing average: 61 ÷ 469 = 13.3%

Using October’s last day listing: 61 ÷ 439 = 13.9%

In either case, these results tell us that in October the SC single detached home resale market was “balanced” – according to the REGBV and its sales-to-active listing’ ratio. Sure...

REBGV Sunshine Coast Charts

I’ll wrap up this post with the board’s SC charts which I haven’t posted in some time. Right off the top, we can see the plunge in detached inventory (total active listings) compared to October 2014. We can see a similar situation in the attached chart. Detached median and average prices are moving up but it is important to remember the board includes ‘$1mill+’ property sales and those sales are up substantially this year (29 YTD in 2015 vs 14 YTD in 2014).

Right, the stats are caught up and my brain has gone to mush.