On Friday, during my daily morning "warm-up-for-work-by-surfing-the-web" routine, I saw a headline that I've been anticipating for a very long time. Most Vancouverites probably never expected to see this in their happy-go-lucky lifetime. But it's now true: Vancouver benchmark house prices are lower than this time last year.

Some key stats released last week:
* The benchmark price for September 2008 was 1.6% lower than September 2007 and now stands at $726,331.
* Prices for the detached-house benchmark are currently 5.8% lower than May 2008.
* There are 43% fewer sales in Metro Vancouver than this time last year.

This was never a surprise to me, given my absolute addiction to every sort of local real estate blog in this city. (I seriously need an intervention.) Surfing around the popular online local real estate community, you can quickly become a bad-news bear. Bloggers like mohican, VHB, freako, solipsist, the pope, and Paul Boesnich have prophesized the coming of the drop way before even the first US markets started to falter. Years ago, there was plenty of opposition from bulls that still believed that this city's fundamentals would drive us into perpetual prosperity. Now the discussions have all turned into debates about how severe the downturn will be, and when the bottom will occur.

More...