2014 Sunshine Coast Monthly Sales Stats

[Skook]

October 2014 SC Sales Stats:

I have three months of data to pull together and make images for and I hope to begin posting it within days. In the meantime, I have prepared a chart and table to keep you occupied while waiting. I decided to revisit the “3 Amigos”: Average and Median selling prices and the HPI Benchmark price. (See: Interpreting Sunshine Coast Real Estate Sales - The 3 Amigos)

My primary data source was the REBGV monthly stats packages; however, I also turned to a few other sources and that meant recalculating median and average sale prices to reconcile them to the REBGV data. The REBGV includes Manufactured Homes on Pads (MOP) and “$1mill+” properties in its detached sales data while another source separates out MOP sales but keeps in the “$1mill+”. So, the data below is not perfect; however, I believe it gives an acceptable picture of what has been happening on the SC over the last four years.

I have pointed out in previous sales data postings that the inclusion of “$1mill+” detached property sales has really distorted the average and median sale price figures on the SC because it is such a small market. For example, the surge in the 2011 Average Sales price occurred because of 3 “mill+” sales in August and September and 4 in October. Median price calculations removed some of those sales as well as the very low ones and so gave a better reflection of the market. In May 2012, there were 4 “mill+” detached property sales followed by 5 in June and only 1 in September, hence that big spike and drop.

Note: months with an asterisk (*) beside them saw no “mill+” detached property sales. The purple columns are the number of single detached home sales per month.

In the table above, the 2010 Average Price is highlighted because the source was an REBGV chart and required some guess work.

I have mentioned before that I have used SC Realtor Gary Little’s monthly sales data. This year he stopped reporting the Average Sale price and my guess it was due to the issues I raise above. So, he now reports only the Median Sales Price on his stats page.

Something that has caught my attention over the course of my posting here is the discrepancy I noticed between Little’s monthly number of detached sales (MOP+DET) and the REBGV. You can see what I mean in the table below:

   

I assumed at one point that perhaps the difference was due to collapsed sales that the board does not account for until perhaps the end of the year. I thought this might explain why every month this year, Little has made revisions to his previously reported Median Sale Price data. This month he upped the October 2012 Detached Median Sales Price while lowering the Attached Median price for both October 2012 and 2013.

A difference of 1 sale between GL and the board is no big deal but August and October are noteworthy. While looking at another source of SC sales data, I realized there might be another answer for the difference – maybe the board includes sales on Gambier and Keats Islands (considered part of Gibsons’ market?) and Little does not. Unfortunately, I will never know for certain and in the grand scheme of things it really isn’t a big deal – just another thing to keep in the back of your mind when looking at different sources of SC sales data.

(More data to be posted soon)

Table Correction: October 2014 Median Price should read $379,000. I will replace this image at the earliest opportunity.