Gerry Thomasen's Blog - Real Market Updates

On Lowballs: Making Offers in Nanaimo's Current Real Estate Market

This post talks about some of the issues around writing low-priced offers, and then at the bottom of the page I've posted some hard data that is relevant to the Nanaimo real estate market during the spring of 2025.

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Let's face it – everyone wants the lowest possible price when they buy property, and it's their real estate agent's job to help make that happen.

But this creates tension when the buyer is unrealistic about what kind of deals are available, and they view any pushback from their agent as disloyalty or laziness.

I often have these conversations:

• Buyer: “I will offer $640,000 (final offer) on this home that’s listed for $700,000.”
  Me: “The seller’s own agent will advise them that, rather than taking your lowball, they might…

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Nanaimo Real Estate Market Update - Summer 2024

A Balancing Out

The most recent peak of real estate prices was in the spring of 2022. In the two years since, things have been un-dramatic; prices dropped up to 15% in some areas especially nearing the end of 2022, but they have recovered some of that value, since. There have been brief periods of very sluggish activity followed by little rallies that don't last very long.

Overall the trend has been toward MUCH more inventory than we have seen in other recent years, giving buyers a chance to be choosy, to negotiate on pricing and other terms. But it's not a bloodbath; while some sellers have taken big hits if they had an urgent need to move and were spooked by several weeks without offers, it is still considered a sellers' market in the sense that…

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Nanaimo Real Estate Market - Spring 2023

In my last market report (Nov 11, 2022) I outlined how the market had peaked in March and declined through 2022. My post ended with "Will be interesting to see what spring 2023 will look like."

It is now April 17th, 2023 and I can say that there is nothing very "interesting" (dramatic) to report - the price decline has certainly SLOWED, and has even started to reverse in some of the markets on the Island. "This could indicate that they’re bottoming out, and when the market shifts – and it always does – it usually happens without much of a warning," said Kelly O'Dwyer, chair of our real estate board.

The optimism seems well-founded. Sales volume of (detached) homes on the Island increased by 73% in March compared to the previous month. People are…

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NANAIMO REAL ESTATE MARKET – THE SHAPE OF 2022

(Written in November 2022)
Real estate values in Nanaimo were on a consistent incline from at least 2014, building momentum at the end of the decade and continuing with intensity into the first months of 2022. There was at least a 3% price increase from the final months of 2021 into Feb 2022.

Then suddenly in March, people stopped asking to view the listings. I remember it well because I had just listed a house and there was very limited response, and my seller clients were disappointed to say the least! But, it wasn’t my fault – agents across town were saying “Suddenly it’s crickets out there…”

Explanations usually focus on the war in Ukraine, continued supply chain issues, and the aggressive interest rate hikes that characterized 2022. There is…

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Sandstone - A Master Plan in South Nanaimo

It was announced in 2009, and it seemed far-fetched to me at the time. But now that a new push has been announced (on the City's "What's Building" resource), this master development feels like it could happen anytime.

The Sandstone lands will span from the Nanaimo River Estuary to Cinnabar Valley, with the RDN landfill roughly in the center. (The landfill is expected to be converted to parkland some day, according to the currently published development application materials. I confess I am curious about how the smell of the landfill will be mitigated for residents nearest to the landfill, but I'm confident that there is premium long-term potential here.)

The "Cedar Rd North" precinct will be close to the estuary and I would expect it to be the…

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Homes with Suites in Nanaimo - A Hot Commodity

The first quarter of 2021 has been a mad scramble for people listing and buying investment properties in Nanaimo. This was already an over-charged segment of the market through 2020 (Covid caused a lot of people to put their money into real estate outside of bigger cities), but in 2021 it's been even more frenzied.

In 2020 we saw a seller's market, with homes selling within a week or two. But in 2021, the following is a typical sight:

• Home is listed on a Tuesday
• Showings are only allowed Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
• Showings can only be thirty minutes long (to accommodate large numbers of buyers)
• Offers reviewed on Sunday afternoon
• Big bidding war ensues

This activity is fueled in part by investors wanting to buy a home to…

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Nanaimo Real Estate Update: January 2021

The real estate market in Nanaimo is heating up beyond expectations as we move into late January. We are seeing a LOT of bidding wars again, more so than at any point in 2020, I believe. I’ll quantify that a bit below.

First, let’s quickly summarize the 2020 statistics for single-family detached homes in Nanaimo:

• 12.88% more homes sold in 2020 vs. 2019 (1306 vs. 1157)
• The average sale price increased 8.82% - from $562,175 in 2019, to $616,588 in 2020

When the pandemic was declared in March 2020, there was speculation of a general market crash and many people thought that home prices would fall. Activity slowed through April, but then it all picked up and it barely slowed down since, even through the Christmas season. Most agree that the…

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Coronavirus and Real Estate - Remote Realtor Services

It's March 17, 2020 and the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is affecting daily life quite drastically.

Things are expected to get worse before they get better. In the past week, the situation has gone from "this seems like a bunch of hype" to "stay away from humans other than family/roommates unless you have good reason". There is widespread shutdown of facilities and on-site services.

In the real estate industry, there are a lot of questions from buyers like "Do I want to enter strangers' homes right now?" and "Is anyone even going to be buying anything at this time?". The answers to these are "That's up to you" and "Yes, absolutely". Homes are still selling in multiple offer scenarios (though I have certainly seen a slowdown of activity since…

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October 2018 Nanaimo Real Estate Market Update

You might be hearing a lot in the news about price corrections in the Vancouver market, but it must be understood that Nanaimo's real estate market has its own characteristics and is developing very differently.

While home SALES in Nanaimo have decreased sharply (Sept 2018 sales were down about 36% from the previous September), PRICES are still rising - September sale prices were more than 10% higher in Nanaimo than they were a year ago.

How do we explain the decrease in sales? It's widely suggested that the number of buyers has diminished because of prudent regulatory measures such as the mortgage stress test, increased interest rates, and increased sales taxes on various types of real estate purchases. But because Nanaimo has a lot of older buyers…

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May 2017 Nanaimo Real Estate Market Update

Most people have heard about the "crazy real estate market" we're seeing in 2017. But do you what KIND of crazy we're seeing? Here's a brief explanation - first in word form, then with some numbers, and finally some charts.

There's a lot of demand. Like, a LOT. The BC economy is great, the Island is very desirable, Vancouver's prices are pushing people out to the fringes, transportation across the pond is improving, and foreign nationals want a piece of it all. But supply can't keep up!

Inventory levels hit a historic low in December, and the trend continues. It's a seller's market (in the extreme); if a listing is appropriately priced, it is likely to sell within a few DAYS, often with bidding wars driving the price higher than expected.

What is the effect…

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