Tuesday, April 22, 2008

REALTOR Association of Edmonton Radio Spin

The REALTORS Association of Edmonton put out a Radio Ad discussing market conditions from the first quarter. I found it interesting enough to duplicate most of it below:

With three months of data to back it up I think we can safely say the market is stable.

And what do you mean by stable?
We had two years of unpredictable prices and sales volumes. By contrast this year we had slight fluctuations but no wild jumps. Prices are trending upward.

How have prices changed?

Since the start of the year single family homes are selling for an avergae of $5600 more and there is about a $10,000 difference in the average condo. So again, stable. Those are normal increases over a three month span.

And sales volume?

So far in 2008 we are seeing higher than normal sales. Keep in mind the two prior years were anything but normal and the first quarter is generally slower than the rest of the year so we expect sales to increase at a stable pace.

Your REALTOR will help you figure out how this stable market effects you....


1. "Prices are trending upward."

The only way to reach this conclusion is to look at only the numbers over this specific time period. It is my opinion that this is a shallow and disingenuous take on the situation. Are same home comparable sales actually increasing?

2. "So far in 2008 we are seeing higher than normal sales"

Absolutely amazing. I do not remember REALTORS ignoring strong 2006 and 2007 sales when pumping the boom. I stole the charts below from Sheldon and Sara at the Edmonton Real Estate Blog:

Sales are low when compared to listings as shown by the sales to listing ratio.
Sales are low when compared to inventory.
Sales are "about par" when comparing to prior years of 2003-2005.

3. Whats really telling is what is not discussed: Record high inventory, very low sales to listing ratio, large number of price reductions.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

the lying just continues
amazing is right....shim sham men
saying whatever..lying at will
disgusting

Krazy Kanuk said...

I think it's time to sit back, relax, and wait to buy......

They can say what they want, but all that will happen in the end is they lose (even more) credibility.

Carioca Canuck said...

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Real estate sales is the only occupation where you have to deliberately lie in order to generate an income.

Jim_s said...

Liars, liars, liars.

Do they look in the mirror and talk to themselves too?

Maybe they do.... bt conversed with himself on the bubble blog many-a-time.

You know things are bad when the lies intensify. "Stable" market.... ok, let's ask 13,000 home sellers about how "stable" the market is. Let's ask the owners of the 2,200 vacant homes sitting for sale how stable the market is. There is almost the same number of VACANT homes for sale today as there are TOTAL for sale during normal inventory times. And we call this current market "stable"?

What a joke of an industry.

-

Pierre said...

CARIOCA CANUCK WROTE:

I"'ve said it before and I'll say it again.

Real estate sales is the only occupation where you have to deliberately lie in order to generate an income."

I think that used car sales folks like CC are lying to make their living. CC is a used car sales guy. He's balsy... Lies lies lies . Realtors and used car sales guys are all liars.
Whatever CC writes gotta be flawed.

Carioca Canuck said...

I don't have to lie.....cars always go down in value.

The 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO excepted of course.....they're now $12MM.