#or so they can find Actual Meta--dunking on the story and explaining why it was Bad isn't fucking meta just tag it as hate for heavens' sak

[loregoddess]

might have to add tears of the kingdom to my "got blacklisted not bc I hate the media (I love it so much actually), but bc the fans are fucking annoying" list

[shihalyfie]

@sage-striaton replied to your post:

Idk how people can say Frontier has characters that lack depth. Imo it’s a very psychological season. The whole adventure thing is aimed to making them grown in their behaviours and feelings, it’s a big metaphor of their development

I’m sorry for hijacking your response to my post to segue this into another rant of mine, but I want to emphasize that one of my goals with this blog (if I can be said to have any) is that I really, really, really want people to re-examine whether they actually believe in the rhetoric that’s been dominating this fanbase for two decades, or whether there’s more to it. This is especially in regards to the fact that we’re talking a series deliberately written in such a way that it’ll change meaning and nuance as you get older, so it can “grow up” with you in a sense, and yet it seems like -- especially in regards to Adventure through Frontier, due to their position as the oldest series that the majority of the fanbase was elementary or preteen age during -- people are still regurgitating the same rehashed twenty-year-old ideas like they’re undeniable law. It’s one thing if they’re saying it because the series didn’t sit well with them the first time and they don’t want to watch it again, but we’re reaching a recurring problem where it’s sort of “brainwashing” even people who don’t actually believe it but feel compelled to go along with it, or wouldn’t feel that way if it weren’t for peer pressure. Obviously, there are dissenting opinions, and ones that are even very loud about that, but that pressure remains.

The mainstream opinion in the fanbase is that Adventure is untouchable and impervious to any criticism, 02 is its inferior sequel with half-baked characters, Tamers is an auteur work that’s the “deepest” of the original tetralogy due to being dark, and Frontier is devoid of much substance at all. Even those who don’t really believe in this will still be pressured to go alongside it, those who like 02 or Frontier will be pressured to consider it a “guilty pleasure”, and it’s only very recently when certain events revealed that the idea of 02 actually having quite its own fervent and passionate fanbase that likes it on its own merits became properly recognized. (I have actually noticed a huge uptick in 02 fans, especially casual ones, being more shameless in talking about liking it in the last two years; you’re still going to get the obnoxious person “reminding” you how bad it apparently is if you bring it up, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it used to be.) I’m not talking about whether something is a “good” or “bad” series -- that concept doesn’t really exist to me as much as whether it’s “to one’s tastes” or not, and I think one of the joys of this franchise is that it has things that cater to people with vastly different preferences -- as much as a lot of potential for analysis and intimate thought about these very fascinating series. Even if 02 and Frontier were as shallow or half-baked as they were accused of, I wouldn’t think it’d be shameful to like them for one’s own reasons anyway, but what frustrates me is that I just don’t think that’s true in the first place!!

Not helping is that there’s still a refusal among the fanbase to admit that there were substantial differences in American English dubbing (especially in regards to Adventure and 02), which I don’t mean as a bad thing in the sense that some people prefer to stick only with that dub and consider that version what they want to work with, but in the sense that the treatment of them as “the same thing” has been horribly detrimental when two people, one coming from that dub and one coming from the Japanese version (or a dub more closely based on it), will end up often having an argument doomed to go nowhere because they were never talking about the same thing to begin with. Recently, a friend admitted to me that although they’d switched to the Japanese version a long time ago, they still couldn’t get the image of Daisuke and Takeru having an inherently hostile relationship (they don’t) out of their head due to the influence of that dub, and although they consciously knew better -- at least enough to admit this to me -- it wasn’t helped by the fact that the fanbase itself continues to reinforce this image because of how normalized it is to treat the dub version and the Japanese version as “virtually the same” and for Western fanbase discourse to assume you should be projecting those takes into the Japanese version. If you’re hanging out in English-speaking circles but are working from the Japanese version or a dub directly based off of it, you do actually have to filter out a lot of takes you’re hearing because they won’t actually apply to the version you’re watching, but not a lot of people realize this.

All four of Adventure through Frontier share tons of key staff, especially Seki, known for her focus on wanting the kids in the audience to be able to empathize with and relate to the characters on screen. All four share some of the best character work I’ve seen not only in this franchise, but also in kids’ media in general, and I also stress that a lot of this has a ton of nuance that isn’t always apparent unless you read between the lines. I do understand that a lot of this probably went over our heads as kids, and I won’t say that the choice to execute it this way should be impervious to criticism, but nevertheless, I think it’s important to call attention to the fact it is there, and much of it becomes recognizable once you see it that way; for instance, so much of "it's contradictory character writing!" comes from the fact that the series tries to represent humans in their inconsistent, messy ways, and while it'll feel "messy" from a writing trope perspective, when you think about it as "since this person has this mentality, does it make sense to approach this with this mindset?", suddenly it becomes very consistent. The supposedly “shallow” 02 and Frontier characters will act in ways that match existing psychological profiles meant for actual humans to terrifying degrees, in ways that you might actually recognize even better once you’ve hit adulthood and start intimately understanding things like depression or anxiety in ways you might not have before. Shockingly, “having heart, important themes, and kindness towards the human condition” are completely valid reasons to uplift a creative work in ways distinct from technical writing or cerebrality or how many tropes they subvert or whatever.

On the flip side, people praise Adventure and Tamers for being the naturally “superior” works with better writing, but when it comes to talking about why the writing is supposedly better, a good chunk of the reasons stated don’t actually explain anything substantial, or go back to actually being passive-aggressive dunks on the other series in some form -- it’s because 02 and Frontier’s character writing sucks that badly, or because Adventure had the “best plot” (which may be true if by “best” you mean “easiest to understand”, but that doesn’t mean much to someone who might not be very happy about how its story progression is just a boss rush), or because Tamers is the “deepest” when by “deep” they actually mean “cerebral, dark, and unsubtle about it” without any further meaning (as if Adventure and 02 were idealistic series that never went into anything nuanced and not, say, the fact they went very viciously deep into societal issues between parents and children, psychological horror, and intimate takes on the human condition). I’m personally saying this as someone who does think Adventure and Tamers have a lot to praise in terms of their approaches to realism and the unique aspects each bring to the table, and I feel that people like this are doing them more of a disservice by not bothering to uplift them for any reason that isn’t actually just inherently condescending. I mean, even taking this outside of the original tetralogy for a bit, when I was plugging Appmon earlier, there’s a reason I focused more on its theme and character writing and the use of “dark” writing to convey its sheer range, rather than trying to boil it down to a shallow “it looks cheery but gets really messed up later!”, which is unfortunately an argument I’ve been seeing about it lately.

In the end, when I write my meta, I write it "making a case" for my point of view, and I welcome others to disagree, but if you disagree, I really hope it'll be because you personally disagree, and not because the entire fanbase has been saying otherwise for twenty years and I sound like a radical. I’m not saying that everyone’s consensus takes are completely unfounded, but frankly speaking, this fanbase has some really bad takes, and in the past few years I��ve found it freeing to not only “say what you feel without worrying what others think”, but actually go out of my way to outright try and purge all the preconceived notions and pick only the ones I agree with because I actually agree with them. I encourage you to do it too! And if you do, you might find things about something you like that you didn’t realize before.

[recentanimenews]

Anime-Gataris Explains Anime Pilgrimages

Anime-Gataris so far has been a compassionate love letter to anime, its industry, the fandom surrounding it, and also to everything else the medium entails. The show has been brimming with meta references and touched upon many of anime’s peculiarities, such as the now-confirmed three-episode rule, or the unbeloved god rays. But Anime-Gataris, to my great joy, also introduced a topic that ‘anime about anime’ rarely discuss, which are anime pilgrimages. We’ll get to the usual comparison images in few seconds, but first, let’s break down everything that Anime-Gataris had to say about pilgrimages.

  I’m sure most of you are familiar with the term by now, at least I hope so after I’ve been constantly writing about the topic for more than one and a half years on Crunchyroll, but Anime-Gataris’ sixth episode marks the perfect opportunity for me to dive even deeper into the subject matter. Simply summarized for starters, an anime pilgrimage is the act of traveling to a real-world location featured in an anime. It’s really not much different from the standard pop-culture tourism, but instead of visiting the filming locations of The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand (not that impressive), or going to Austria because of The Sound of Music (I’m Austrian and still haven’t watched it), one would go to Oarai to see the setting of GIRLS und PANZER (now that’s where it’s at). 

    As for terminology, these trips are called seichijunrei (聖地巡礼) in Japanese. Seichi translates to sacred places, or even the Holy Land, and actually mean the anime locations in this case, hence why they’re often fittingly translated as anime meccas in English. Junrei simply means pilgrimage, and for it to qualify as an anime pilgrimage, a simple visit to one of the real-world location models used in a show would be enough. However, finding those places in the first place can often be tricky business. For that, there are the highly devoted group of butaitanbou (舞台探訪, literally scene hunting) enthusiasts, who not only seek out the locations, but also try to identify and pinpoint every single scene in an anime. That also includes photographing these locations in a way that they match the anime backgrounds as closely as possible, which is also what I do for all of my Anime vs. Real Life articles on Crunchyroll. On that note, I’d also like to highly recommend the blog likeafishinwater from my friend Michael Vito, who’s been meticulously following and compiling the efforts of the whole community. 

    On the other hand, it has actually been getting noticeably easier to identify an anime’s setting nowadays. Due to the strongly growing anime tourism trend, many local governments already start cooperating with the production committees early on, trying to promote their respective cities to anime fans, which naturally make some anime settings become blatantly obvious.

  There are still enough shows that aren’t as straightforward and still don’t use real town names, perhaps to avoid negative backlash from the local community (like Hanasaku Iroha’s Yunosagi, which is Yuwaku in reality), but even then, once the town has been identified, pilgrims would still flock to these meccas nonetheless.

So instead, communal authorities seem to more and more want to get their foot in the door early, as the geographical product placement in anime is sure to raise awareness and recognition among watchers, not only of the cities and tourist destinations themselves, but even the local products. I’m sure that everybody who’s been following Love Live! Sunshine!! has noticed that one specific brand of mandarin oranges that keeps popping up, which are unsurprisingly being produced where the show is set.

  The town featured here by Anime-Gataris is Oarai, one of anime tourism’s biggest success stories, which I’ll get to in more detail a little further down.

    Anime collaborations and tie-ins have also become more elaborate. These can range from simple local events with an anime’s cast, to stamp rallies, to fully decorated buses and trains, where all the stops get announced by the show’s voice actors. Just like the Tokai Bus Orange Shuttle that runs in Numazu, the setting of Love Live! Sunshine!!

Anime-Gataris chooses a shot of Kamakura here, which has been home to a plethora of anime that I don’t even want to try to count. A few examples would be Squid Girl, Tari Tari, Elfen Lied, Slam Dunk, and many, many more. Heck, even if the anime itself is not set in Kamakura, the inevitable beach episode will be (like in Fuuka or Oreshura).

  The odd thing about Anime-Gataris’s shot here is that it actually does not depict an actual location of Kamakura, but rather merges together a few spots that instantly evoke the image of the coastal town. One of them being the highly popular railway crossing near Kamakurakokomae Station (shown in anime like Three Leaves, Three Colors, Interviews With Monster Girls , etc.), and also the slope near Shichirigahama High School (HaNaYaMaTa, Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club, Fireworks, etc.).

    The reasons and motivations as to why anime watchers travel to these meccas vary from person to person. One of the pleasures is to further deepen the connection with an admired anime, to blur the line between reality and fiction, trying to experience the closest possible version of the fictional world of one’s favorite work. The anime location can be as mundane and ordinary as it gets, but e.g. the moment that Taki and Mitsuha meet on a random flight of stairs in Tokyo, instantly turns those into a special spot for fans. The value of an anime pilgrimage location is therefore not necessarily defined by the nature of the site itself, but rather the emotional investment and connection a fan has with it.

The image shown in Anime-Gataris here is a shot of Kyuchichibu Bridge, which in itself is not really all too special, except for fans of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, who’ll surely recognize this key location from the anime (we even made a video about it). Anime adds a specific narrative quality to a location, a different dimension, and a certain atmosphere only watchers of the show will feel. It's remarkable that for some people the motivation to seek out anime locations isn’t necessarily the place itself, but more the love for an anime, its characters, and its story, as this even allows the dullest and untouristy places in the middle of nowhere to attract fans and tourists.

  For some, the draw is more to see anime places they already knew beforehand. These are often located in their own area, or one they’re highly familiar with, generating a sense of pride and attachment. This season’s A Sister’s All You Need even addressed this in of its end cards, jokingly stating that Gifu Prefecture has become (rightfully) cocky lately, due to the many big recent anime set there, namely Your Name. and A Silent Voice.

  As for myself, I simply like visiting places I wouldn’t visit otherwise and I actually enjoy searching for all of those locations I see in anime. It’s a fun pastime and even quite rewarding when you finally find that one spot you’ve been searching for. Or, you know, maybe it’s just cool to see a place you’ve seen in an anime.  

    The next popular location featured in Anime-Gataris are the Sayama Hills, which served as the setting for the Ghibli classic, My Neighbor Totoro. There actually is a quite chilling aspect to this, due to the murder case called the Sayama Incident, which took place there in 1963, and has served as the basis for the infamous conspiracy theory that Totoro is actually a god of death (which has already been more or less denied by Studio Ghibli). 

    To my surprise, Anime-Gataris also briefly mentioned the surge of augmented reality smartphone apps, that let you add the anime characters to photos of the real-world locations. The biggest one being Butaimeguri, which also has a partnership with the anime that’s being featured in the Anime-Gataris screenshot here, which is Hyouka (set in Takayama). Another one would be P.A. Works’ app for the anime Koitabi: True Tours Nanto, which will only unlock an episode once you are at the respective location in Nanto.

  There are many more facets’ to anime pilgrimages. The show didn’t really go into the practices’ history, or the reason why anime studios have been putting out more and more intricately detailed and realistic backgrounds, but Anime-Gataris has done a very good job of giving a profound and thorough overview of anime tourism and pilgrimages. 

    Finally, let’s get to the comparison shots! In the sixth episode of Anime-Gataris, the anime club heads to Oarai, in the Ibaraki Prefecture, for their very own GIRLS und PANZER pilgrimage (or Girls & Tank in Anime-Gataris). As already mentioned, Oarai has become one of the biggest success stories in anime tourism as it was one of the few places that actually managed to keep a long-lasting stream of visitors since its initial run in 2012. Its success can be attributed to various different factors, like the high popularity of the show itself, the easy to reach location, but also the proactive local community, who welcomed all the anime visitors with open arms. The image above shows Oarai Station. I’m lucky that I get to reuse the photos of my own GIRLS und Panzer this way. 

    The stairs leading up to Oarai’s historic Isosaki Shrine. In GIRLS und PANZER der FILM, the anglerfish team’s Panzer IV and Pravda’s T-34-85 both rattled down these stairs during their intense fight, so it’s only natural that Minoa would get excited about finally seeing the spot in real life (I was as well).

    As Minoa correctly states, it's just cool to see the same scenery that Miho Rinpomi gets to see in the anime. One of the many joys of an anime pilgrimage. 

    I mentioned earlier that anime pilgrimages don’t really differ from the common pop-culture tourism in general, but this certain aspect here is actually culture specific. Whenever a shrine appears in an anime, it usually doesn’t take fans all too long to leave custom-made anime wishing plaques (ema) at that shrine. The shrines themselves also try to benefit from this behavior, as you’ll often find already premade anime plaques for sale there.  

    Another regular site in anime is the Tokyo Big Sight. The convention and exhibition center in Tokyo is the venue for the biannual Comiket, the world’s largest doujinshi fair, which gets featured in anime at least once every season (twice this season already). 

    If you’re planning on getting pictures of the place itself, I’d recommend not doing so during Comiket. 

    It might just be pure coincidence, but the almost exact same shot was also in this season’s BLEND-S.

    And, of course, an anime about anime wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the center of otaku culture itself, Akihabara. 

    There are many reasons to love Anime-Gataris, as it's not only surprisingly educational, but also one of those shows that seem to truly understand anime and everything around it.

  In case you ever want to make an anime pilgrimage to the locations of Anime-Gataris, I also put together a locations map for the show (and it’s not only a rehash of my GIRLS und PANZER map). There are actually quite a few spots in here that I didn’t mention in my lengthy article, like Anime-Gataris’ school and the nearby station, which both often get used in anime. But also one of anime’s most animated theme park gates is in the small extra Imgur folder that I compiled.

    Make sure not to miss Anime-Gataris’ grand finale this weekend! Have you ever done an anime pilgrimage, or do you want to visit a specific anime location? Sound off in the comments below! Merry Christmas!

---

Wilhelm is an anime tourist, who loves to search for and uncover the real-world spots he sees in anime. You can talk with him on Twitter @Surwill.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[rebeccahpedersen]

Making Sense Of The Drop In Average Home Price

TorontoRealtyBlog

Maybe I’m just opening up another can of worms here, but I want to go back to last week’s epic discussion about the average Toronto home price, my predictions about the possibility of an increase in that statistic this fall, and an examination of where that number comes from.

Many will suggest that a Realtor trying to downplay the significance of a negative statistic is just more snake-oil selling, but I think my regular readers know that I write what I believe.

I really, truly believe that the $732,292 number representing the average sale price of a Toronto home this past August is misleading, so allow me to explain why…

The stakes have never been higher for bulls and bears.

The bears smell blood in the water, and they’re coming out of an epic hibernation.

The bulls believe in their position, and will defend it until the bitter end.

In a market of ups and downs, short and long term, I think it’s fair to say that both bears and bulls can be correct, at the same time.

But in the past week, I have never seen the kind of passion, and at times, animosity, coming from the mouths (and fingertips) of said bulls and bears.

Even politics doesn’t get this messy.

Last Tuesday’s blog post spawned a record near-200 comments, and while many of the comments were from a handful of loyal and passionate blog readers, engaging in a very rare – for the 2017 Internet, un-moderated debate, an incredible number of people weighed in with their opinions on the future of Toronto real estate.

I usually know when I’m about to light a fire, and walk away.

If you’ve been reading TRB for a decade, you know that sometimes I’ll post a blog because I know it’s going to result in debate.

But to be honest, I had no idea what a hurricane last Tuesday’s blog was about to cause.

My predictions were honest, and so I thought, reasonable.

Dare I say, in my mind, they were obvious.

The average sale price in Toronto fell to $732,292 this past August, from a peak of $920,791 in April.  Everybody and their drunk mother know this number will be higher by the end of September.

Right?

So I thought, perhaps rather naively.

Perhaps I underestimated the number of market bears out there, and while some have suggested that the “bulls” and “bears” label are too form-fitting and restrictive, I really do think that there’s little room for an in-between.

A cynic would suggest that the bulls own real estate, and the bears do not.

I could easily create a fictional “bear” who passionately, and at times of late, aggressively, states his or her position on Internet forums.  This is a would-be 2007 real estate buyer, who heard the market was going to tank, and held off on purchasing.  The $1,000,000 house that he or she eyed in 2007, gained, and gained, and gained, hitting somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2,400,000 earlier this year.  “Denial” isn’t a river in Egypt; it’s a character trait that we all possess, and many demonstrate in times of complete and utter dismay.

If I were a person who read the wrong article, took the wrong advice, or believed so hard in my own hope/dream/prayer that I cost myself a lifetime of tax-free capital gains I would never make back, then I might be angry too.

But reading the comments on many online newspaper articles, I just can’t get over the level of anger that exists.

Anger.

Real, true, anger.

It’s present in every comment section of every newspaper article about real estate this month.

I’m blessed to have a readership on TRB that is far more savvy, informed, and respectful, than what trolls around the Internet.  TRB’s bulls and bears throw statistics like adults; not feces like monkeys.

But online – just, wow, I can’t get over it.

The Globe & Mail wrote just about the only positive article about the Toronto real estate market last week: “The Buyers Are Back In Toronto’s Housing Market.”

The comments, which have now been closed, were beyond angry.

Many readers took to calling this “fake news” and suggested that there was some sort of conspiracy between the Toronto Real Estate Board and the Globe & Mail to publish false information.

Here’s a sample of the comments:

“Yet another sponsored article by TREB/agents.”

“This article is FAKE NEWS!  This market is about to plummet another 20-30%.”

“This is complete propaganda from the RE industry! G&M needs the cash (advertisement) and will print anything these guys will tell them to.”

“G&M you will go bankrupt if you continue to post realtor propaganda. Pathetic and laughable article.”

Where does all this anger come from?

And tell me if I’m wrong here, folks, but I believe that you are far, far more likely to predict a market crash if you want it to happen, then if you don’t.

I also think that the people that are the most angry, and screaming the loudest – throwing around “fake news” tags like those above, are far less likely to own real estate.

I’m not saying that all market bears are non-owners of real estate.  But I’m saying that not owning real estate is a fantastic reason to have a bearish outlook, and delude yourself into thinking a 50% market crash is coming.

So with that out of the way, and keeping in mind that this was just supposed to be the lead-in for the actual meat of today’s blog, let me get back to the decline in average home price.

I made two statements last week that I think many people disagreed with:

1) The average sale price of a Toronto home will increase in September and October, over that of August.

2) The average sale price of a Toronto home, reported in August, of $732,292, is misleading.

I stand by both of those statements, and today, I’m going to double down.

The reason why I ‘predicted’ that the average sale price in Toronto would increase in September and October isn’t because, as some commenters suggested, I was biased, or cheerleading, or pumping tires, or “trying to change the psychology of the buyer pool” (which was flattering, for somebody to think one blog post on the entirety of the Internet could have that effect), but rather because I figured that was a slam dunk.

The average sale price dropped 20% from April to August.

But the value of Toronto homes didn’t drop 20%, or anywhere near it.

This is what I mentioned last week, and have said in a number of media interviews – that the average home price decreasing 20% on paper has not translated in practice.

Not even close.

Yes, the average sale price reported by TREB has dropped from $920,791 in April to $732,292 this past August.

But I, or anybody else, nor you if you tried, can find a $1,000,000 house that’s selling for $800,000, or a $500,000 condo that’s selling for $400,000.

So ladies and gentlemen, get ready to throw the “fake news” tag at me when I suggest that the average sale price reported in July and August does not reflect the average value.

The two simply are not aligned.

Yes, I agree that values are down, the market has changed, the market has declined, the psychology has changed, and we’re in a far more balanced market.  The spring conditions are long-gone.

But the numbers, on which the media, and the bears, want to focus, are exacerbating and exaggerating the decline.

Over the past month, I have offered two reasons for this:

1) Fewer houses are sold in the summer, as the housing market is more cyclical than the condo market.

2) Far fewer luxury houses are sold in the summer, because luxury homes are always marketed in the spring.

So let’s look back through the first eight months of 2017, and see how each of the nine home-types that TREB tracks represented all the home sales, on a percentage basis.

Many of you won’t be familiar with these home types, but I figured I’d show them all, as TREB does.

A “link” house is a freehold, which is linked underground via the foundation, but might not be linked above ground, like a semi or a row.

A “co-op” apartment and a “co-ownership” are essentially the same thing, as far as I’m concerned.  Both fall under the “condo” umbrella.

A “detached condo” is something, to be quite honest, I have never seen and really don’t understand, and perhaps that’s why the numbers are so low.

In any event, you know what detached, semi-detached, and rowhouses are (the latter shows as att/row/twn on MLS for attached-rowhouse-townhouse, simply meaning it’s attached at both sides), and you know what condo apartments and condo townhouses are.  The rest are such small percentages, that they’re not really important.

Here’s how the percentages break down:

I think it’s important to note, more than anything, how the percentage of detached homes, which are the holy-grail of houses, and clearly the most expensive, peaks in April at 49.1%, which of course, we know as the peak of the average home price, and valleys in August at 40.6%.

Coincidence?

Or correlation?

Those nine categories are confusing, and unnecessary, and I’ve really only included them to be exact.

Let’s add together the freeholds (detached, semi-detached, rowhouse, link house) and label them “Freehold,” and add together the condos (condo townhouse, condo apartment, co-ops, detached condo, and co-ownerships), and label them “Condo.”

Again, we see the trend continue.

The month of April saw 67.3% of all sales represented by freeholds.

That number dropped dramatically to 60.3% in August.

You might think 6% is insignificant; a ’rounding error’ you might say.

But if the average freehold price in Toronto was, say, $1,000,000 in August, and the average condo price was $500,000, then seeing 6% fewer freehold and 6% more condos in August, than in April, is clearly going to change the resulting average sale price.

If we saw the same 67.3% and 32.6% ratio of freehold to condos in August, as we saw in April, the $732,292 would be significantly higher.

If we’re truly going to compare apples to apples, and compare the average sale price in April to the average sale price in August, then we need to consider what the average is averaging.

In this case, we’re averaging a different set of data: far fewer houses, and far more condos.

We all know that the real estate market is more cyclical for houses than it is for condos.

Who owns houses?  Primarily families.

What do families do in the summer?  They vacation.  They send the kids to camp.  They do not diligently and feverishly partake in the real estate market, as they do in the spring, and the fall.

That “average sale price” in August is skewed because of the sample being taken.

And it’s for this reason, going back to my blog from last Tuesday, that I figured I had a “slam dunk” prediction when I said the average sale price in September will be higher than August.

I still believe that.

As to my second point, about the luxury home market, consider the following:

Now first and foremost, I don’t consider a $2,000,000 home to be “luxury” in Toronto any more, but TREB uses this as the highest price point tracked, so let’s work with what we’ve got.

Just as I suggested that there are more houses, as a percentage of sales, sold in the spring than in the summer, I am have suggested that the same is true with respect to the higher-end homes.

This chart proves that.

We saw another peak (a continuing theme) in April with 10.1% of all sales for detached houses topping $2,000,000.

in August, that number plummeted to 4.3%.

Once again, you have to figure this will have an affect on the average sale price.

Those $3 Million, $4 Million, and $5 Million homes that were listed in the spring, were not listed in the summer.

And while you might say, “If home prices decreased, then a $2,100,000 house that sold in April, and is included in those 579 sales, would sell for $1,990,000 in August, and wouldn’t be included in the 112 sales,” I would agree, but, I would suggest that we’re talking about a literal handful of properties that fit that description.

For the most part, we’re talking about 6% fewer luxury homes being sold in August, than in April.

–

Bottom line, folks: I’m telling you from experience in this market, that the 20% drop in average sale price, on paper, has not translated to an actual 20% drop in sale price, in practice.

I’m not seeing out there, and neither are my colleagues.

Ask your friend from work who is looking at houses every weekend – the drop isn’t there.

5%, 10%, whatever you want to call it, depending on the location, and property type.

But just as I “predicted” last Tuesday that many buyers would be caught off guard with respect to market dynamics, I also think they’ll be caught off guard by market price.

Just as they’ll be caught off guard if they’re not expecting to see “offer nights” on freehold houses, and houses selling quickly, they’ll be caught off guard if they’re looking at a block of houses worth $1,000,000 in the spring, thinking they’re going to pick one up for $800,000.

To answer a few commenters from last Tuesday’s blog – yes, if I’m wrong about the average sale price increasing in September, I will absolutely admit that I was wrong, and post a photo of myself on Instagram wearing a dunce cap.

So long as you understand and acknowledge that after ten years of blogging on TRB, I write what I believe to be true, not what I want to be true.  The formula for many market bears, ironically, is the exact opposite…

The post Making Sense Of The Drop In Average Home Price appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

Originated from http://ift.tt/2xqDjxZ

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Making Sense Of The Drop In Average Home Price

TorontoRealtyBlog

Maybe I’m just opening up another can of worms here, but I want to go back to last week’s epic discussion about the average Toronto home price, my predictions about the possibility of an increase in that statistic this fall, and an examination of where that number comes from.

Many will suggest that a Realtor trying to downplay the significance of a negative statistic is just more snake-oil selling, but I think my regular readers know that I write what I believe.

I really, truly believe that the $732,292 number representing the average sale price of a Toronto home this past August is misleading, so allow me to explain why…

The stakes have never been higher for bulls and bears.

The bears smell blood in the water, and they’re coming out of an epic hibernation.

The bulls believe in their position, and will defend it until the bitter end.

In a market of ups and downs, short and long term, I think it’s fair to say that both bears and bulls can be correct, at the same time.

But in the past week, I have never seen the kind of passion, and at times, animosity, coming from the mouths (and fingertips) of said bulls and bears.

Even politics doesn’t get this messy.

Last Tuesday’s blog post spawned a record near-200 comments, and while many of the comments were from a handful of loyal and passionate blog readers, engaging in a very rare – for the 2017 Internet, un-moderated debate, an incredible number of people weighed in with their opinions on the future of Toronto real estate.

I usually know when I’m about to light a fire, and walk away.

If you’ve been reading TRB for a decade, you know that sometimes I’ll post a blog because I know it’s going to result in debate.

But to be honest, I had no idea what a hurricane last Tuesday’s blog was about to cause.

My predictions were honest, and so I thought, reasonable.

Dare I say, in my mind, they were obvious.

The average sale price in Toronto fell to $732,292 this past August, from a peak of $920,791 in April.  Everybody and their drunk mother know this number will be higher by the end of September.

Right?

So I thought, perhaps rather naively.

Perhaps I underestimated the number of market bears out there, and while some have suggested that the “bulls” and “bears” label are too form-fitting and restrictive, I really do think that there’s little room for an in-between.

A cynic would suggest that the bulls own real estate, and the bears do not.

I could easily create a fictional “bear” who passionately, and at times of late, aggressively, states his or her position on Internet forums.  This is a would-be 2007 real estate buyer, who heard the market was going to tank, and held off on purchasing.  The $1,000,000 house that he or she eyed in 2007, gained, and gained, and gained, hitting somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2,400,000 earlier this year.  “Denial” isn’t a river in Egypt; it’s a character trait that we all possess, and many demonstrate in times of complete and utter dismay.

If I were a person who read the wrong article, took the wrong advice, or believed so hard in my own hope/dream/prayer that I cost myself a lifetime of tax-free capital gains I would never make back, then I might be angry too.

But reading the comments on many online newspaper articles, I just can’t get over the level of anger that exists.

Anger.

Real, true, anger.

It’s present in every comment section of every newspaper article about real estate this month.

I’m blessed to have a readership on TRB that is far more savvy, informed, and respectful, than what trolls around the Internet.  TRB’s bulls and bears throw statistics like adults; not feces like monkeys.

But online – just, wow, I can’t get over it.

The Globe & Mail wrote just about the only positive article about the Toronto real estate market last week: “The Buyers Are Back In Toronto’s Housing Market.”

The comments, which have now been closed, were beyond angry.

Many readers took to calling this “fake news” and suggested that there was some sort of conspiracy between the Toronto Real Estate Board and the Globe & Mail to publish false information.

Here’s a sample of the comments:

“Yet another sponsored article by TREB/agents.”

“This article is FAKE NEWS!  This market is about to plummet another 20-30%.”

“This is complete propaganda from the RE industry! G&M needs the cash (advertisement) and will print anything these guys will tell them to.”

“G&M you will go bankrupt if you continue to post realtor propaganda. Pathetic and laughable article.”

Where does all this anger come from?

And tell me if I’m wrong here, folks, but I believe that you are far, far more likely to predict a market crash if you want it to happen, then if you don’t.

I also think that the people that are the most angry, and screaming the loudest – throwing around “fake news” tags like those above, are far less likely to own real estate.

I’m not saying that all market bears are non-owners of real estate.  But I’m saying that not owning real estate is a fantastic reason to have a bearish outlook, and delude yourself into thinking a 50% market crash is coming.

So with that out of the way, and keeping in mind that this was just supposed to be the lead-in for the actual meat of today’s blog, let me get back to the decline in average home price.

I made two statements last week that I think many people disagreed with:

1) The average sale price of a Toronto home will increase in September and October, over that of August.

2) The average sale price of a Toronto home, reported in August, of $732,292, is misleading.

I stand by both of those statements, and today, I’m going to double down.

The reason why I ‘predicted’ that the average sale price in Toronto would increase in September and October isn’t because, as some commenters suggested, I was biased, or cheerleading, or pumping tires, or “trying to change the psychology of the buyer pool” (which was flattering, for somebody to think one blog post on the entirety of the Internet could have that effect), but rather because I figured that was a slam dunk.

The average sale price dropped 20% from April to August.

But the value of Toronto homes didn’t drop 20%, or anywhere near it.

This is what I mentioned last week, and have said in a number of media interviews – that the average home price decreasing 20% on paper has not translated in practice.

Not even close.

Yes, the average sale price reported by TREB has dropped from $920,791 in April to $732,292 this past August.

But I, or anybody else, nor you if you tried, can find a $1,000,000 house that’s selling for $800,000, or a $500,000 condo that’s selling for $400,000.

So ladies and gentlemen, get ready to throw the “fake news” tag at me when I suggest that the average sale price reported in July and August does not reflect the average value.

The two simply are not aligned.

Yes, I agree that values are down, the market has changed, the market has declined, the psychology has changed, and we’re in a far more balanced market.  The spring conditions are long-gone.

But the numbers, on which the media, and the bears, want to focus, are exacerbating and exaggerating the decline.

Over the past month, I have offered two reasons for this:

1) Fewer houses are sold in the summer, as the housing market is more cyclical than the condo market.

2) Far fewer luxury houses are sold in the summer, because luxury homes are always marketed in the spring.

So let’s look back through the first eight months of 2017, and see how each of the nine home-types that TREB tracks represented all the home sales, on a percentage basis.

Many of you won’t be familiar with these home types, but I figured I’d show them all, as TREB does.

A “link” house is a freehold, which is linked underground via the foundation, but might not be linked above ground, like a semi or a row.

A “co-op” apartment and a “co-ownership” are essentially the same thing, as far as I’m concerned.  Both fall under the “condo” umbrella.

A “detached condo” is something, to be quite honest, I have never seen and really don’t understand, and perhaps that’s why the numbers are so low.

In any event, you know what detached, semi-detached, and rowhouses are (the latter shows as att/row/twn on MLS for attached-rowhouse-townhouse, simply meaning it’s attached at both sides), and you know what condo apartments and condo townhouses are.  The rest are such small percentages, that they’re not really important.

Here’s how the percentages break down:

I think it’s important to note, more than anything, how the percentage of detached homes, which are the holy-grail of houses, and clearly the most expensive, peaks in April at 49.1%, which of course, we know as the peak of the average home price, and valleys in August at 40.6%.

Coincidence?

Or correlation?

Those nine categories are confusing, and unnecessary, and I’ve really only included them to be exact.

Let’s add together the freeholds (detached, semi-detached, rowhouse, link house) and label them “Freehold,” and add together the condos (condo townhouse, condo apartment, co-ops, detached condo, and co-ownerships), and label them “Condo.”

Again, we see the trend continue.

The month of April saw 67.3% of all sales represented by freeholds.

That number dropped dramatically to 60.3% in August.

You might think 6% is insignificant; a ’rounding error’ you might say.

But if the average freehold price in Toronto was, say, $1,000,000 in August, and the average condo price was $500,000, then seeing 6% fewer freehold and 6% more condos in August, than in April, is clearly going to change the resulting average sale price.

If we saw the same 67.3% and 32.6% ratio of freehold to condos in August, as we saw in April, the $732,292 would be significantly higher.

If we’re truly going to compare apples to apples, and compare the average sale price in April to the average sale price in August, then we need to consider what the average is averaging.

In this case, we’re averaging a different set of data: far fewer houses, and far more condos.

We all know that the real estate market is more cyclical for houses than it is for condos.

Who owns houses?  Primarily families.

What do families do in the summer?  They vacation.  They send the kids to camp.  They do not diligently and feverishly partake in the real estate market, as they do in the spring, and the fall.

That “average sale price” in August is skewed because of the sample being taken.

And it’s for this reason, going back to my blog from last Tuesday, that I figured I had a “slam dunk” prediction when I said the average sale price in September will be higher than August.

I still believe that.

As to my second point, about the luxury home market, consider the following:

Now first and foremost, I don’t consider a $2,000,000 home to be “luxury” in Toronto any more, but TREB uses this as the highest price point tracked, so let’s work with what we’ve got.

Just as I suggested that there are more houses, as a percentage of sales, sold in the spring than in the summer, I am have suggested that the same is true with respect to the higher-end homes.

This chart proves that.

We saw another peak (a continuing theme) in April with 10.1% of all sales for detached houses topping $2,000,000.

in August, that number plummeted to 4.3%.

Once again, you have to figure this will have an affect on the average sale price.

Those $3 Million, $4 Million, and $5 Million homes that were listed in the spring, were not listed in the summer.

And while you might say, “If home prices decreased, then a $2,100,000 house that sold in April, and is included in those 579 sales, would sell for $1,990,000 in August, and wouldn’t be included in the 112 sales,” I would agree, but, I would suggest that we’re talking about a literal handful of properties that fit that description.

For the most part, we’re talking about 6% fewer luxury homes being sold in August, than in April.

–

Bottom line, folks: I’m telling you from experience in this market, that the 20% drop in average sale price, on paper, has not translated to an actual 20% drop in sale price, in practice.

I’m not seeing out there, and neither are my colleagues.

Ask your friend from work who is looking at houses every weekend – the drop isn’t there.

5%, 10%, whatever you want to call it, depending on the location, and property type.

But just as I “predicted” last Tuesday that many buyers would be caught off guard with respect to market dynamics, I also think they’ll be caught off guard by market price.

Just as they’ll be caught off guard if they’re not expecting to see “offer nights” on freehold houses, and houses selling quickly, they’ll be caught off guard if they’re looking at a block of houses worth $1,000,000 in the spring, thinking they’re going to pick one up for $800,000.

To answer a few commenters from last Tuesday’s blog – yes, if I’m wrong about the average sale price increasing in September, I will absolutely admit that I was wrong, and post a photo of myself on Instagram wearing a dunce cap.

So long as you understand and acknowledge that after ten years of blogging on TRB, I write what I believe to be true, not what I want to be true.  The formula for many market bears, ironically, is the exact opposite…

The post Making Sense Of The Drop In Average Home Price appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

Originated from http://ift.tt/2xqDjxZ