If you have a home to sell, the better you know your buyer, the better the chance that you can make your home attractive to them.  Here are some stats from the Victoria Real Estate Board for all of 2011.  

• 56% of buyers were buying their first home.

• Most buyers moved because they felt that their home was either too large or too small, the next most popular reason to move was to relocate to a more desirable neighbourhood.  It is interesting to note that less than 1% of homes were purchased solely for vacation use.  This is down from previous years.

• Looking at single buyers only, female buyers outnumbered male buyers.  Families outnumbered couples with no children, but only slightly.

• 65% of buyers were moving within the Greater Victoria area.  14% of buyers moved from other provinces in Canada, with only 3% coming from outside Canada.  Ever since the recession, the number of out of country buyers has been lower.

• And, it seems that Realtors are playing a large role in making their clients aware of the property that theyt end up purchasing - as it should be.  Buyers report that 72% of the time their Realtor pro-actively introduced them to the property through a phone call or through an email search.  Only 15% did Buyers found their new home by searching Realtor.ca or other websites.  

This is just a tiny snapshot of the data that we gather in the effort to help our sellers find the right buyer.  If you have any specific questions, please feel free to give us a call.

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Last week I reported that there was good activity, but not that many actual firm deals on paper.  A week later, as you would expect, that buyer activity is now turning into sales. Sales volume for both condos and detached homes is up over last week and definitely trending in the right direction.  But, it is extremely important for sellers to note that the market remains very price sensitive.  If you are considering selling, you absolutely must price your property at the current market price or buyers will pass it over for those other listings that are more attractive. 

It may be more or less a balanced market, but there are enough savvy sellers that less attractively priced properties will not sell.  Please don’t read me as being pessimistic here.  More and more properties are selling and there are lots of buyers in the market for properly priced properties.

Over the last 30 days, 154 single family houses were sold, up by 19 houses from last week.  The median price is down $12,000 to $524,500. The average house was on the market for 55 days.

In the same time period, 101 condos were sold, up by 9 condos from last week.  The median price is up $5,000 to $270,000. The average condo was on the market for 80 days.

There are now 1,563 houses for sale, up by 55 from last week.  Condo inventory has risen by 19 to 848 suites.

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