I guess December got away from me – as it turns out I was quite busy during the last half of the month with two separate buyers, and of course that little holiday and all the associated eating and drinking that goes along with it! I actually compiled all the November stats early in December and they sat on my desk all month because I kept forgetting to post them. So here is a double stats post and a year-end wrap up – let’s see where we’re at…
Starting with November:
November 2011:
- New listings, all property types: 52 (40 single family dwellings)
- Sales, single family dwellings (SFD): 17
- Sales, all property types: 21
- Lowest price: a half duplex at $240,000 (lowest price SFD: $310,000)
- Highest price: $572,000
- Average price, SFD: $415,037
- Median price, SFD: $405,000
- Active listings, all property types: 393 (260 SFD)
- Sale price breakdown (SFD): $300K-$400K: 8 | $400K-$500K: 8 | $500K-$600K: 1
- SFD Average Days On Market (DOM): 100
- New listings, all property types: 36 (22 SFD)
- Sales, SFD: 6
- Sales, all property types: 13
- Lowest price: a manufactured home at $30,000 (Lowest price SFD: $282,000)
- Highest price: $565,000
- Average price, SFD: $420,633
- Median price, SFD: $418,200
- Active listings, all property types: 391 (279 SFD)
- Sale price breakdown (SFD): $200K-$300K: 1 | $300K-$400K: 1 | $400K-$500K: 3 | $500K-600K: 1
- SFD Average DOM: 107
That’s a big drop in activity over 2011’s numbers. Up until the last quarter of 2012, the total number of sales was on track to match 2011. While 2011 wasn’t a great year for real estate in Sooke, at least that would be a sign of improvement or at least staying the same. Let’s now have a look at December’s numbers:
December 2011:
- New Listings, all property types: 31 (22 SFD)
- Sales, SFD: 10
- Sales, all property types: 21
- Lowest price: a manufactured home at $63,000 (Lowest price SFD: $326,000)
- Highest price: $585,000
- Average price, SFD: $430,970
- Median price, SFD: $418,450
- Active listings, all property types: 355 (240 SFD)
- Sale price breakdown (SFD): $300K-$400K: 4 | $400K-$500K: 3 | $500K-600K: 3
- SFD Average DOM: 92
December 2012:
- New Listings, all property types: 26 (17 SFD)
- Sales, SFD: 2
- Sales, all property types: 5
- Lowest price: a manufactured home at $110,000 (Lowest price SFD: $405,000)
- Highest price: $445,000
- Average price, SFD: $425,000
- Median price, SFD: $425,000
- Active listings, all property types: 373 (266 SFD)
- Sale price breakdown (SFD): $400K-$500K: 2
- SFD Average DOM: 174
With December 2012’s numbers being so low the average and median statistics are pretty meaningless, as is the days on market statistic. While it was an extremely quiet month for sales, almost every agent I know was relatively busy – working with clients and writing offers. I wrote two myself and I set up another one which I am working on currently.
Let’s have a look at a few graphs to see the market trend over the past few years:
Looking at the above, you can see that the median price of a single-family home has actually been quite stable, with few exceptions. With so many fluctuations in number of transactions month-to-month, this statistic can be hard to rely on in the short term, but I think you can see that over the long term of five years, a trend starts to appear. An important comment I like to make on this graph is that while the actual median price has remained somewhat constant, the value has changed. $425,000 buys you quite a bit more today than it did in 2008 – consequently if you paid $425,000 in 2008 you might not get that for it today.
The graph above is very telling – at the beginning of 2008 there were about 100 single family homes on the market. Following a typical seasonal trend (listings increasing from January, peaking in June or July, and decreasing into the new year), listings have increased to a point where they peaked at about 325 in the summers of 2011 and 2012. With more homes on the market we have a simple oversupply problem, especially when combined with decreasing demand as the next graph shows:
The last quarter of 2008 was ugly – with the “Global Economic Meltdown” stopping nearly all sales activity – I remember it well… So, it was no surprise that with stimulus programs and reduced lending rates and prices, that sales peaked in 2009, but each year since has had less demand, and listings have been increasing.
Apart from the statistical anomaly that is December 2012, this is a pretty good graph showing months of inventory in Sooke. This is a simple calculation of the number of homes on the market in a given month divided by the number that sell. So if there are 100 homes on the market and 10 sell, then there are 10 months of inventory on the market. Obviously it’s an oversimplification and there are many more factors that go into whether or not a property will sell, but it’s a good indicator of market demand. In a market where the months of inventory has been hanging around near 20 months for some time, you need to make sure your house is the best presented, best priced house in its class. For tips on doing this – contact me for a free evaluation and marketing proposal.
In summation, the Sooke real estate market is tough, but far from dead. I am talking to buyers almost daily who have plans to move to our area and they’re excited about it. That said – realistic expectations are needed when selling. And, it may not be possible for you to sell without giving up a large chunk of your home equity (or even going backward) – in that case, enjoy what you have and know that while you aren’t selling, you’re paying down the mortgage, increasing your equity in the property which will net you even more money when it is the right time to sell.
If you have any questions about how these statistics were calculated, what they mean, or would like to know what your property is worth in today’s market, just give me a call at 250-885-0512 or send me an email