After a bearish start to October we have seen some recent strength in the sales. No surprise with the huge run-up in the markets and sentiment. The TSE and our RE sales seem to be very highly correlated at present.
Of course it wasn't helped by Carney's slap in the face of savers. No interest hikes for a long time. And have you noticed he has quit talking about over-indebted Canadians and the RE market. Seems like all these Central Bankers know is to fix one bursting bubble by blowing up another one.
And Carney is regarded s one of the best Central bankers in the world and may be moving to a take over an International bank regulatory body. The rationale being that our banks have survived the crisis so well. That's because we haven't had our crisis yet! ...and when we do, the risk has already been moved to the tax-payer's balance sheet via the CMHC.
So what are we going to get from the October number- trick or treat. I had though we were headed for lower numbers and stated that I thought we would be flat YOY for one of the indices. Hard to read if that will happen or I was too optimistic (bearishly optimistic).
Sales have firmed up in the second half of the month and as Larry Yatter's figures have shown, we have a mixed picture. Coquitlam has less sales, huge MOI and yet the average and median prices have gone up! I suspect due a change in the mix of sales.
On the other hand Richmond has less sales, the MOI is up but much less than Coquitlam and yet prices are down significantly. North Van also has stronger MOI and sales have been fairly steady but the prices are also down quite a bit.
So the final numbers could show anything. I will be watching for the HPI particularly to see what that shows. Clearly this Fall is weaker than last and the price trajectory has moved down.
