John Pasalis in Real Estate Roundup
Is the real estate industry conspiring to inflate house price statistics?
It looks like Canadian Real Estate magazine is taking a page out of Garth Turner's book. The magazine, geared towards Canadian real estate investors, believes there's a conspiracy by real estate boards to inflate house price statistics by comparing year-over-year figures instead of month-to-month changes. For example, sales in July 2011 increased 21% over the same month last year but when we compare the change from June to July sales are actually down 23%.
So are real estate boards actually trying to inflate house price statistics? Of course not. Readers of our blog know that it doesn't make sense to compare sales figures month over month because changes in house sales and prices are seasonal. House sales almost always decline from June to July, you can see this on our real estate statistics page. A more balanced argument would be to say that the increase in sales in July 2011 is slightly inflated by the fact that sales were very poor in the summer of 2010. But I'm sure balanced arguments don't sell as many magazines as a good old conspiracy theory.
Real estate boards ignoring month-to-month losses to promote year-over-year gains (Canadian Real Estate Magazine)
Other Real Estate News
Toronto pushes new home prices higher (Globe and Mail)
Surprise! Canadian housing starts rose unexpectedly in July (BuzzBuzzHome)
Multi-unit starts keep housing starts elevate - pdf (TD Economics)
Bank of Canada faces interest rate dilemma (CBC)
Bond Record #3 (Canadian Mortgage Trends)
Mortgage rates could fall on market slump (Globe and Mail)
30 Hard Facts on Toronto’s Condo Market! (The Redpin)
Why try to disguise a tall tower? (Globe and Mail)
MUST HAVE MONDAY – The Bookshelf Bench (Savel Blogs)
The most elegant apartments in Toronto (Toronto Star)
John Pasalis is the Broker Owner of Realosophy Realty Inc in Toronto. Realosophy focuses on researching Toronto neighbourhoods to help their clients make smarter real estate decisions. Email John
August 12, 2011
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