Calgary Real Estate Back to Taking the ‘Fall’
I remember predicting, awhile ago, that if inventory levels continued to remain low, and buyers and sellers finally decided to harness the courage to ‘get off the fence,’ we’d see Calgary’s real estate market recover to one of a more balanced nature.
Sure, that might seem like an obvious forecast, in theory. And yes, some of you would argue Calgary’s housing market has basically been balanced since April or May of this year. But it’s interesting to see, now, the experts are using the city’s recent real estate numbers to show a return to levels quite similar to what we experienced before the sharp decline starting in Q4 of 2008.
According to the latest stats from the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) and an article from the Calgary Herald, sales and prices here have definitely recovered. CREB points to October’s numbers as strong evidence the Calgary real estate market has turned a corner.
For instance, the average, single-family sale-price, for October of 2009, is just under $462,500 – that’s up almost 10% over this time last year and up roughly 1% from September. It’s also, according to the Herald, the highest on record and more than $10,000 higher than October of 2007, when the housing market was still booming.
The CREB numbers also demonstrate both single-family and condominium sales are each up more than 50% over October of 2008, with 1285 single-family homes sold and 601 condo-units changing hands, respectively.
So is this a surprise? Well yes and no. Very few people here, including the top realtors, industry analysts, and market experts predicted the Calgary market would seemingly bounce-back this quickly. In fact, rewind back to last December and most of these experts were feeling grim about the near future.
Now, here we are a year later, and the combination of mortgage affordability, low-rates, more affordable carrying costs and a flood of buyers into the market, and we’re essentially back to pre-recession levels in the Calgary market.
And as I’ve pointed out before – for the last 7-8 months, if anything, we’ve seen inventory levels drop and remain low, while demand has increased. And as this continues, that’s what’s driving prices back up. But it’s also important to point out (and the Herald article doesn’t adress this) that most of the increase in sales activity in Calgary is happening in the $200,000 – $500,000 range, and also, interestingly, in the $1,000,000+ category. So not every price-point is seeing noticeable growth.
Overall, don’t expect prices to keep rising dramatically. And certainly don’t expect the double-digit price increases to return to what we experienced in the ‘good old days’ of ‘07 and most of ‘08. But, all signs point to a strong. stable, spring-market, after we wade through the usual winter slowdown.
What do you think? Send me a reply.
