Welcome to the first issue of my eNewsletter!
Check out my new YouTube video for my McClure condo listing
Announcing the newly re-designed Royal LePage website!
April 16th 2013
I wanted to share with you the new Royal LePage "fully-redesigned and content-rich national website", at www.royallepage.ca. Packed full of interesting real estate stats and facts - this can be your go-to for any real estate related information - check it out.....
The Victoria Real Estate Board MLS Awards Night
April 11th
I recently attended the Victoria Real Estate Board's MLS Awards evening which is a fun and informative evening recognising the hard work and dedication of local Victoria Realtors. I was in great company with good food and some wonderful people.
Here's a taste:
My Open Houses this week-end: April 13th & 14th 2013I'm excited to share my upcoming Open Houses with you for this w/e, maybe see you there?!?:
 Rosemarie & Tom LOVE Tennis…
Our Rocky Start... About ten years ago, as naïve beginners, we entered a mixed doubles tournament. Our opening round opponents were Jerry, a man many years our senior, and his octogenarian female partner. Our singular goal was to hit some shots toward and over the net. They were experienced players. No matter that the lady couldn't run; she set up camp at the net and killed all the drifting balls we lobbed in her direction. And Jerry’s returns were relentlessly unreachable. After the slaughter Jerry kindly offered us some playing tips and suggested lessons. Lessons and a decade of regular play have made us passable players. Why we love it... 1. Competition Rosemarie and I like competition! Some people eschew competitive activities, perhaps conflating the desire to win with hostility and aggression. We are peace loving people AND we love to win! 2. Friendship Tennis has brought us a wealth of friendship. There’s Kelly with her big heart, pirate’s curses, and debilitating outbreaks of laughter on the court; Gary’s pterodactyl shrieks when he misses a shot; and Martin bellowing “MARRRR-TIN!” when he flubs an easy one. There’s Patrick, Valerie, Jeff, Claire, Peter, Judy, Hugh, Lynn, Al, Andrew, Margaret, Kip, Sue, Rajesh, Stefan, Lioba, Josiah, Robert, Bill, Carmen, Caroline, Ian, Gabriel, Hanne, Ineke, Jeanne, Jeremy, Joan, Jim, Kyle, Mark, Michael, Penny, Rachel, Reg, Sheryl, Sid, Christie, Harry, Louise, Susanne, Terry, Tonya, and so many more! 3. Our Wonderful Victoria Virtual Tennis Club - VVTC We met most of our tennis friends through our amazing Victoria Virtual Tennis Club. We are “Virtual” in that we have no courts of our own. Instead, we play on Victoria’s great indoor and outdoor public courts. Our website, http://vvtc.bc.ca/, is the hub of our tennis organization. Check it out; it’s a marvel of accessible simplicity created by VVTC member and web wizard Mark Alldritt. Our VVTC “clubhouses” consist of the coffee shops we often gather at post-match and of each other’s homes (where we have great parties!) VVTC membership is free and it’s is easy to sign up for on the website. We are over 200 strong and growing! 4. Oh Yeah, and the Exercise Too Tennis keeps us active and fit even though it’s all fun and no work! Alas, no Redemption We’ve met scores of fine people across the net but, oddly, we never again played Jerry. Alas, there will be no redemption for Rosemarie and Tom from that geriatric schooling. Lessons Anyone? Please learn from our experience with Jerry and his partner; if you want to jump into tennis start with lessons. These three facilities offer fine beginner’s tennis lesson packages:
Side with the Winners
You may or may not choose to play tennis. Perhaps golf, baseball, hockey, ping pong, badminton, bocce, Scrabble, bungy jumping, channel-surfing, or (you name it) is your game. But in life we all must occasionally take the Real Estate playing field. Rosemarie and her team bring years of experience and success to winning at this game. Please do your house selling and/or hunting friends a favour and put them onto Coach Rosemarie!
Thank you for reading this blog and for visiting our website! And remember this;
LOVE means nothing in tennis! Victoria Real Estate Board Latest StatisticsMarket Activity Follows Traditional Real Estate Cycle in Greater VictoriaApril 2, 2013 VICTORIA BC - Greater Victoria's real estate market is following tradition with a spring upswing in activities with month-over-month increases in showings, new listings and total sales. The Victoria Real Estate Board reports a total of 483 sales processed through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS®) in March 2013, an increase of 23% over the previous month. Sales figures are 15% lower than March 2012's 570 sales. "The market continues to unfold as predicted," says Shelley Mann, President of the Board. "March resulted in the highest number of sales since July 2012 when the lending rules changed. With sales below the historical norm, there is potential pent-up consumer demand developing in the market. We expect quarterly activity to increase over the next two quarters. "The real estate market peaked in 2008, and then the market adjusted during the global economic crisis. The first six months of 2012 were reasonably strong, and then mortgage amortization rules changed in July. The revised lending rules affected buyers' abilities to qualify for mortgages and we are still feeling those effects on the market," Mann explains. "With different lending rules in effect, it is challenging to compare the first six months of 2013 with 2012," she adds. The median price of a single-family home is $510,777 compared to $555,000 in March 2012, a decrease of 8%. The six-month average shows a decrease of less than one percent month-over-month. Annual differences are skewed by four single-family home sales over $2 million in March 2012. There were 121 condominium sales in March, with a median price of $265,000 - down 3.3% year-over-year and 2% over last month. Townhouses saw increased sales in the past month with a median price of $384,450, an increase of 2.86% year-over-year and 13.91% since February 2013. Current active listings at the end of March were 4,333. Total Waterfront Single Family Dwellings sold: 13, down 1 over March 2012
Bank of Canada Interest Rate Decision - March 6, 2013British Columbia Real Estate Association "ECONOMICS NOW" Report March 6, 2013
The Bank of Canada announced this morning that it is holding its target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. The Bank sees economic growth in Canada picking-up through 2013, as growth in exports and business investment offset a slowdown in household spending and residential construction. On inflation, the Bank noted that low core and total CPI inflation have been more subdued than the Bank projected, owing to significant excess capacity in the economy. Given low inflation and what the Bank terms a "constructive evolution of imbalances" in the household sector (meaning a lower pace of debt accumulation), the Bank has walked back its previous rate tightening bias stating that, "current levels of monetary stimulus will likely remain appropriate for a period of time, after which some modest withdrawal will likely be required." Weak economic growth through the second half of last year will likely bleed into the first half of 2013, which means a continuation of subdued inflation of just over 1 per cent. In fact, the outlook for growth and inflation is weak enough that, if the Bank had not spent the last year voicing concern over the perilous state of household finances, a 25 basis point cut in the Bank’s overnight target would be increasingly likely. Instead, the Bank will put a future rate hike on hold for the foreseeable future, with rates gradually increasing in 2014.
“Copyright British Columbia Real Estate Association. Reprinted with permission.” Spring Perks Up Greater Victoria Real Estate MarketVictoria Real Estate Board Current Statistics March 1, 2013 VICTORIA BC - The Victoria Real Estate Board reports a total of 394 sales were processed through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS®) in February, an increase of 34% over the previous month. The highest activity was in single-family homes and condominiums. Compared to February 2012, sales were down by 18.26%. Shelley Mann, President of the Board, says it's more important to look at monthly trends and compare monthly buying behaviour year-over-year. "The trend lines for November, December and January are the same for the last three years. "We've seen a slow increase in sales activity over the last three months and we still hold to our forecast of a modest 2-4% sales increase in 2013," Mann says. "The typical spring market is perking up. I spoke to 10 REALTORS® yesterday and nine said they are experiencing definite increases in their activity over the last two months and have a positive outlook. Many buyers are still waiting for prices to drop, but it's clear to me that sellers are in a holding pattern regarding the value of their homes," Mann says. "However, if a house is priced properly, within the market value range, it will likely sell more quickly." The median price of a single family home is $505,500 compared to $530,250 in February 2012, a decrease of 4.67%. The six-month average shows an increase of less than one percent year-over-year, and a less than one percent decrease over last month. "In other words, no change," Mann adds. There were 112 condominium sales in February, a 38.27% increase over January 2013. While the median price of $270,500 for condominiums is down 2.08% year-over-year, it increased 13.49% over January 2013. Townhouses saw increased sales in the past month with a median price of $337,500, which is down by 11.65% year-over-year and 10.82% since January 2013. Current active listings at the end of February were 4,072. Total Waterfront Single Family Dwellings sold: 12, up 5 over February 2012
"Housing takes a turn toward affordability"Vancouver Sun, February 26th 2013
British Columbia's housing affordability saw noticeable improvements in the fourth quarter of 2012, but it remains the priciest province in which to own a home, the latest Housing Trends and Affordability Report released today by RBC Economics Research shows. "Affordability improvements across most housing types in the fourth quarter were welcome news to prospective buyers in British Columbia," said Craig Wright, senior vice-president and chief economist, RBC. "Still, the market has a long way to go before affordability reaches less stressful levels." In Metro Vancouver, home resales fell 23 per cent in 2012 to the lowest level in 12 years, excluding the recession of 2008, RBC said. While the RBC report says poor affordability is a key factor behind the 11.9 per cent drop in home resales in the province in 2012 compared with 2011, other databases offer a more nuanced picture of housing affordability in Metro Vancouver. The Vancouver Sun introduced the UDI/FortisBC Housing Affordability Index earlier this month to provide a more contextual and in-depth look at housing affordability across Metro Vancouver. This index found that outside of the city of Vancouver - notably in suburbs like Surrey and Maple Ridge - the housing market remains affordable to people earning average incomes. The significant differences between the RBC Housing Affordability Measures and The Vancouver Sun UDI/For-tisBC Housing Affordability Index is that RBC expresses the percentage of an average income that is required to service the debt on a home and does not separate out the different areas of Metro Vancouver, while the UDI/Fortis Index looks at the percentage of households in a given region that can afford to buy a home in that specific region, using no more than 32 per cent of their income. "The UDI/FortisBC Housing Affordability Index powered by Urban Analytics provides a better representation of what you can afford to buy and where in Metro Vancouver, because we looked at the different geographic regions separately," said Michael Ferreira, principal at Urban Analytics, a company that provides research and advisory services for the new home industry. RBC's housing affordability measures track the proportion of pre-tax household income needed to service the costs of owning a home at market values - it puts the cost of owning in B.C. at 66.4 per cent of median household incomes for a detached bungalow, 72.7 per cent for a detached bungalow and 33.4 per cent for condominiums. These were all down from the previous quarter, except for the two-storey home category, which went up 0.4 per cent after a 3.2 per cent drop last quarter, as prices declined between 0.8 and four per cent across the region. For Vancouver, the RBC data shows a detached bungalow costs 82.2 per cent of median income, including mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes. The UDI/FortisBC Housing Affordability Index breaks Metro Vancouver into three areas: the city of Vancouver, Inner Metro (West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, Richmond, South Delta, Coquitlam, Port Moody, Port Coquitlam) and Outer Metro (Surrey, Langley, North Delta, White Rock, Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge). Splitting the region into three areas means the numbers are not skewed so heavily by the priciest markets like the west side of Vancouver, Ferreira said. The index shows that the majority of households in outer Metro can afford the payments on all types of homes, both new and resale. It found that as many as 82.9 per cent of households in outer Metro could make the payments on a resale wood-frame condo, while 80.4 per cent could afford a resale concrete condo. For inner Metro, the index found that while 64.5 per cent of working households can afford a resale wood-frame condo, just 51.7 per cent of working households can afford a new concrete condo and less than 40.9 per cent of households could afford a single-family home. In Vancouver proper, the UDI/FortisBC Affordability Index shows that housing is affordable for a far smaller percentage of the population - fewer than 32 per cent of households can afford payments on a single-family home, a new or resale townhouse or a new concrete condominium. tsherlock@vancouversun.com Twitter.com/tracysherlock © (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.
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