I’m not sure if the famous nursery rhyme involving the falling sky is currently in the public domain and/or if it is royalty free, so I’ll avoid any direct references to a height-challenged, adolescent chicken…  Add to that the fact that Disney made a movie based on the same story and I am sure is copyright protected!

As usual there has been a ton of froth on the heels of recent real estate sales data from the preceding month, in this case, August.  It doesn’t really matter if the data point to a rising, falling or a sideways market, there will never be a shortage of members of the media and the public who will blow some or all of the data out of proportion, for better or worse.  In this case sales volumes are down considerably from near record highs in August 2009.

That being said, the last couple of months have seen some significant developments (HST, interest rate changes, mortgage options) which has fuelled more debate, mostly in the form of “anonymous” comments on blogs and under media stories from individuals who are sure that the end of the world is indeed just around the corner, which in turn leads a lot of nice people to ponder their fate. 

As I deal with a lot of nice people during the normal course of business I have been pondering a blog post for quite some time to discuss some of the recent questions raised from the implementation of the HST, raised from the spectre of rising interest rates, by media speculation and other topics.  The reason I have been pondering for awhile is that this is a rather expansive topic, and experience tells me that many people who read blogs tend to lose interest in a post if it rambles too long…  This is why I’ve decided to break this into several smaller posts over the coming days & weeks, rather than continue to figure out a cohesive way to cram it all into one long-winded post.

In upcoming posts I will touch on the HST, the Bank of Canada, and demand and supply, amongst other topics.  I will wrap it up with a discussion about whether the sky is falling by contrasting the events of late 2008 (the last time the sky fell) and where we are now (hint: the sky is not falling at the moment, and not likely to, but anything can happen…).

Thanks for reading, as always, please contact us for all of your real estate needs in Victoria, B.C.

Sean Farrell

Our colleagues in our Vancouver office recently posted a piece on the Macdonald Realty Corporate Blog reviewing the luxury market sales in Vancouver in the first six months of 2010. 

In that time there were 169 sales over $3,000,000 in Greater Vancouver!  That number is greater than the all sales in 2008 (167) and is poised to break the record of 209 sales set last year.

The article points out that mostly foreign buyers are responsible for the activity in the luxury market, particularly those from Mainland China. 

We have seen a sharp increase in the number of buyers from China in our listings in the last three months as well.  In a 6 week period ending in June of 2010 we were receiving several showing requests from Chinese buyers and we did indeed sell two properties to buyers from China, one well over $2.5 million in price.

Traditionally, the bulk foreign investment or interest in our luxury property listings in Greater Victoria has come from Western Europe, the United States and to a lesser degree, the Pacific Rim countries in South East Asia.

According to one source, the increase in interest from buyers from Mainland China could be partially attributed to the Chinese government placing Victoria on their official approved list of travel destinations for their citizens.  I haven’t been able to verify this despite researching it for some time, although I continue to try and confirm that.  Regardless, we are seeing increased interest of late from China.

EDIT:  I have recently read in a few places that the Chinese government placed Canada (not just Victoria) on it’s approved list as a destination for its citizens earlier in 2010.  That actually surprised me a bit given the number of Chinese immigrants that have been in Greater Vancouver for decades, I have always thought of Vancouver as destination for Chinese citizens, I didn’t realize it wasn’t “official” for their tourists!  I have yet to be able to track down a source for that news, it has been difficult to find, however, I’ve seen it a few times in on-line media so I suspect it will turn out to be valid news.

The entire post can be read here.

Thanks for reading, please call us with all of your real estate needs in Victoria, BC.

Regards, Sean