Sunday, September 21, 2008

Marc Perras - Spinning like Clockwork

From the latest round of radio ads on the REALTORS Association of Edmonton's site:

August Market Facts - Prices Up
August Market Facts - Sales Up

First off a comment on the titles. Sales were down compared to July and up compared to last year. Prices were down both to last month and last year. Anyway I had the misfortune of listening to these...

Just like the swallows return to Capistrano every year after winter the buyers return to the Edmonton real estate market after summer.
It happens every year like clockwork and we expect it to happen again - Marc Perras

This is simply a fabrication by Marc Perras and is not supported by reality based arguments.

Look at this sales chart again from the Edmonton Real Estate Blog. Compare June, July and August numbers with those of September, October and November. With a few exceptions fall tend to be slower than summer. The only thing happening like clockwork is desperate spinning from the REALTORS Association of Edmonton.


*Chart From Edmonton Real Estate Blog

There is more...
But we usually see softer prices in August because people have so much on the go. That pattern held true this August as the average residential price dipped by about 1.8% from the previous month.
So prices fell slightly as expected...

He then goes on to say how prices are expected to rise in the fall. Using their own numbers I determined the % month price changes for August and September going back to 1990 (from REALTOR Association stats).


Aug % change Sep % change
1990 1.37% -2.61%
1991 0.44% -1.61%
1992 1.46% -1.31%
1993 -1.03% -3.22%
1994 2.70% -1.80%
1995 -3.85% -2.04%
1996 2.79% -2.03%
1997 -0.92% -0.69%
1998 -0.85% -0.94%
1999 -4.41% 2.72%
2000 2.07% -3.43%
2001 -5.72% 2.51%
2002 -1.26% -0.62%
2003 -0.40% 1.19%
2004 0.79% -0.92%
2005 0.12% -2.77%
2006 5.56% 2.95%
2007 -2.80% -0.15%
Average -0.22% -0.82%

Generally September has had higher price drops than August. And the drop of 1.8%, while not devastating, is worse than average.

Also remember when the price drops were supposed to only occur in the second quarter? This statement I covered in a previous post.

Q: Should I buy now or wait?

Perras: "I think it's a great time to buy now. If we're going to see any softening in prices, it's going to be in the second quarter, which is right now. This kind of inventory is going to thin out as we get into the fall."

Marc Perras, May 6, 2008.

I don't mind bullish arguments and would expect them from REALTORs. But when they totally make stuff up that is not supported by the numbers they need to be called on it.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Realturds have certainly replaced lawyers with position bottom feeder #1

crebb said...

At least lawyers have some form of education.

Bearclaw, always enjoy your blog.

Keep up the good work!

Brent said...

Ditto, I'll second that complement, you always have good information and have done your research Bearclaw.

Brent said...

Q: Should I buy now or wait?

Perras: "I think it's a great time to buy now. If we're going to see any softening in prices, it's going to be in the second quarter, which is right now. This kind of inventory is going to thin out as we get into the fall."

Marc Perras, May 6, 2008.


He's been spewing the same speel since the beginning of time. Once a sales agent, always a sales agent and always trying to sell you on "it's the best time"
LMAO

Anonymous said...

Yeah I recently talked to a realator I know and he was saying the same stick that now is the time to buy as invetory will drop and prices will go up --yadda yadda and he also had the gall to tell me if I were to bu/make an offer to offer market comparsion and not make a ridiculos emberassing low ball offer

Anonymous said...

Hey Bearclaw,
You're putting a lot of effort into your blog, and providing a lot of great information. We also put a lot of effort into creating charts and summarizing the stats on our blog. If you're going to use our charts, at least credit the source and keep the watermark on there. If we could prevent others from taking the chart from your blog I wouldn't mind as much, but now the whole world can take our work from your blog and use it as their own. Thanks...Sara at edmontonrealestateblog.com

BearClaw said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BearClaw said...

sara,

I did credit your blog and there was no watermark on the original version of the sales chart, I did not remove it.

I added links hope thats cool.

Anonymous said...

hey sara open up the books so we can make our own charts
you want to hog the material
and we have to be force fed the info..open the books or quit whining..what are you afraid of

squid

Anonymous said...

once again from the edm bog

Here is our update on the Edmonton real estate market. (Previous week's numbers are in brackets). For the past 7 days:
# Sales: 274 (243, 300, 258)


so i added them together for a total of 1075 homes sold in the past 28 days (sept 26 today)

they then claim

63% sales to new listings ratio! Wow! 1496 sales for far this month! Lets just say....that's not what Sheldon and I were expecting. One thing we were expecting was a price drop, and the average prices have slid to $323,206 for the month so far (down from $329 at the end of August) just like last September.

so what gives here ?
you claim 1,496 sales
your stats say 1075 sales

i know exactly what you are doing
and so do you
you should be ashamed of yourselves

that flat out lieing

BearClaw said...

anon,

maybe the monthly and weekly stats cover different areas/housing types and could explain the difference.

Anonymous said...

thats the whole point
who in the hell knows what it counts ?

squid