Here is a little bit of aftermath from the winds on one of our client's new townhouse sites at 860 Wilson Ave. I have a few puns in mind for the picture but ill keep the email professional.
One factor when wanting to look at the overall market health is what homes are selling at compared to list price. When using this ratio in reading the market, to me it really indicates how much demand is out there based on the current supply. The higher the number indicates more of a seller's market, the lower the number indicates a shift to a buyers market. Bringing us to where we are currently at. So far in November in the Central Okanagan marketplace, the purchases have gone for 100% of the asking price. With a week left it appears this will be the 8th month this year to hit 100% of the asking price. As we are not privy to all information, on each deal of how many offers are being received, it is what we will have to use to see if homes are being bid up or for going for under ask, this can also be used in the "mini" markets when looking at subdivisions, strata, and price points. To give you an idea of how competitive certain areas are. Here is how each "mini-market" has faired. Single-family Homes The single-family home market has been slightly more competitive than the overall market it seems especially in April. So far in 2021 the ratio has been 100% list to ask 9 out of 11 times, assuming November keeps its current month to date status. The peak of the competition was in March, April, and May where the ratios hit, 100.9%, 101%, and 100.2% respectively. Since those months, we have seen prices increase quite drastically in terms of the asking price, which also helps explain why the ratio has remained fairly steady over the remaining months, only veering to 99.7% in September which likely was an election driven slump.
Apartments This is the reason I like to look at the min-markets to really give a sense of the health of the market and where you can find some winners and losers. There is a lot more volatility in the apartment market which is just a slight sense of a bit more buyers power, however, not by much. In 2021 so far the 4 out of the 11 months have hit the 100%. In October it hit 98.8% with the average for 2021 so far at 99.45%. It doesn't get you a lot of buying power but at least theres something. That being said there are additional factors in some of these buildings that affect the marketability more so than in single-family homes and that is the age-restricted portions, as we factor out the age-restricted apartments, the numbers get slightly better for sellers with the apartments getting 100% 6 times with an average of 99.55 so far in 2021. These stats are all driven from MLS, a problem with this is some big presales did not hit MLS, when you look at Aqua, WaterStreet By the Park, Caban presale condo units, there have been thousands of new presale condos sold this year which is a complete assumption they were all sold at the asking price.
Townhomes Last but not least is the Townhome market. This market appears to have seen the most competition as the average list-to-sale ratio has been 100%, 10 out of 11 times this year. To me, this shows that the townhome market is one of the most stable markets generally speaking. This however does not take into account a factor that a lot of the inventory sold could potentially be new builds more so than other mini-markets which normally new builds prices are pretty firm even in more of buyers markets.
