Agent Will

That really depends on who use what as their data and how the filtered them.  What am I yammering on about?  Well, this site has achieved a small boost of fame since the latest weekly stats came out showing a negative Year over Year number for the area I measure.  It’s become a topic over at Rob Chipman’s blog (why people are asking him how I got my numbers instead of asking me, I do not know).  It’s also been reported over at Greaterfool.com, Garth Turner’s book promotion/bear refuge.

The real issue is that I am reporting, right last week, that we had a negative YOY number when no one else has.  Not the REBGV, not CREA, not the MSM (mainstream media).  So how can I be doing this?

The board reported in their last monthly that West Van was just +0.9% YOY (since the average is about 1.5m that’s just +$15k) and PoCo +1% (or $5400) for detached houses.

The REBGV also reports that the avarage benchmark price fell over the past three months more than $2000 across all of the region with West Van leading the way by almost an $80,000 decline.

Then there’s me.  I show that the average home has fallen 4% in the past year and 9% in the past three months.  What gives?  Why the discrepancy?  Did we peak in March?

The Board is comparing Monthly stats.  I am comparing weekly stats.  Just as markets can have wild swings from day to day, while milder they can still be pretty wild from week to week.  This is basically Einsteins Theory of Relativity applied to statistics.  Depending on your relative point of view (weekly, monthly, or yearly) we are either holding kind of steady by weaker than before or are dropping.

And it doesn’t matter.

Not at all.

What does matter is that the trend has slowed.  Tremendously.  While I show a drop of 9% in value for the reported sales in the past three months that does not mean your home has dropped 9% in value.  Wait till next week and see what the numbers say.  Where value is truly gained is following the trend of red and green.  And it is undeniable that we are seeing a lot more red than green these days.  Individual home values are not going up.  They aren’t dropping much yet, either.  Taken as a whole these stats reveal that the Buyers out there are electing to spend less than before.  Where for the first few months of the year the average Detached house was over $1m, it has floated down and around under that for the past couple of months.

So whose numbers are right?  Mine are.  And so are the board’s.  And anyone else out there producing stats.  They’re really not that hard to pull.  Believe me.  It’s just a matter of how you present them.  Heck, we’re up BIG time from 10 years ago.  I mean, Decade over Decade?  Wow.