Competition Bureau Vs CREA and REALTOR.ca®

CREA and the Competition Bureau have come to an agreement on what changes will be made to their rules which govern the use of REALTOR.ca®. For us here in Victoria I do not see there being any changes to the system we already have in place. All of the changes and regulations outlined in the agreement have been in effect here in Victoria for many years. I read the press release from CREA three times and saw nothing that with affect the way that the Victoria Real Estate Board governs it’s members. This seems incredible when you take into account the amount of media coverage on the story. Since Victoria is one of Canada’s most advanced local real estate boards in business practices, we have already dealt with these issues and have come to the same conclusion as CREA and the Commissioner. There is a multitude of different business models operating in Victoria and they have been in business for many years.

Aaron Hall.

http://aaronhallrealestate.com/

Less Listings Coming Onto The Market, Supply And Demand.

I have noticed over the past month that within our Brokerage (Royal LePage Coast Capital Realty) we have seen a dramatic decline in the number of new listings coming onto the market. To me this is a seasonal trend that is quite predictable here in Victoria BC. I am expecting the market to chug along at a predictably slow rate as it usually does at this time of year. We are seeing a lower than usual number of sales happening these days, so I have been asking the public what they think the reason is. The other day at an Open House a lady told me and Peter that she had already bought and so did everyone she knew that was going to buy. This was a good point! There are a finite number of buyers out there, and it is very possible that we have more homes for sale than there are buyers to buy them. We all know that our prices downtown are high and that if they were to lower we may attract more buyers to the downtown area. The thing is, the prices of non-luxury downtown real estate have not dropped below the prices seen earlier in this year (February), but the number of sales in the downtown area have been steady. Demand is a powerful market force and it is keeping prices quite stable for homeowners selling their downtown real estate. I work primarily with downtown real estate but this does not make me un-aware of the different things are happening outside of the core areas of our Capital Region.

Aaron.

More FAQs can be found at: http://aaronhallrealestate.com/

What Do You Do When The Market Is Slow, And When Is It Going To Pick Up?

I have many people talking about how I must have a lot of free time these days with the market being slow. For me this just does not seem to be the case.

Lately I have been spending a great amount of time answering questions and meeting with people to discuss what I am seeing on the front lines our local real estate market.

What I have been telling people is the in my world I really see consumer confidence as being the largest factor to the current slow-down. I am working with buyers and sellers, I did help 5 properties change hands in August but have struck out for Sept.

Where I see the greatest difficulty in our current market is in trying to negotiate price. Buyers and sellers are so far apart that it can take a great amount of time and effort to reach an agreement. One set of buyers I am working with now have been negotiating on a property for over 3 weeks, This is unusual.

The components to the Victoria Real Estate market are so many and so varied that even after working directly with many different buyers and seller over the past three months I can still see no clear picture as to where we are headed.

So far, I have not seen any considerable drops in values of homes that I have been working on. However, I have seen homes priced well over values from last year which have needed dramatic price reductions in order to sell, mind you these huge price reductions have only brought the sale prices back down to where they were at the beginning of this year.

There are a few areas of the market that have seen drops in value, and areas that have been affected by the HST but in large the average home that is desirable for one reason or another is selling at prices seen at the beginning of this year.

One important trend I would like to point out is that in my recent activities I have seen a large reduction in both first time buyers with High-Ratio Mortgages, and out of town buyers.

At the moment, the few people who I see buying real estate through me or the other Agents in my office are predominantly locals who are moving from one place to another.