Here is our weekly update on the Edmonton real estate market. (Last week’s numbers are in brackets). For the past 7 days:
# New listings: 632 (730)
# Sales: 243 (232)
Ratio: 38% (32%)
# Price changes: 286 (274)
# Expired Listings: 109 (363)
# Canceled, withdrawn and terminated listings: 52 (38)
Net loss/gain in listings this week: 228 (97)
Active listings for single family homes: 2866 (2772)
Active listings for condos: 2246 (2137)
Inventory has crept up a bit again this week. The increase still seems normal for this time of year.
Just a question but do we know the comparable active listing numbers for SFDs and Condos for the same week last year? Are we up like 15% y/y or up like 40% y/y?
Report on business, Feb 15th 2008:
Steadily rising home prices have benched potential buyers, particularly in Alberta. In January, unit sales in Calgary dropped by 30.9 per cent from the year before and by 21 per cent in Edmonton. At the same time, new listings in those markets surged by 35.3 per cent and 61.1 per cent, respectively.
For more, link onto the globenadmail website
Report on business, Feb 15th 2008:
Steadily rising home prices have benched potential buyers, particularly in Alberta. In January, unit sales in Calgary dropped by 30.9 per cent from the year before and by 21 per cent in Edmonton. At the same time, new listings in those markets surged by 35.3 per cent and 61.1 per cent, respectively.
For more, link onto the globenadmail website
So with this rate our total sales for Feb may end up around 1200 to 1500 maximum…which will be quite less for this time of the year.
The price per sft is around the Feb 2007 level…though the average and medians are still higher..
Another 30 dollars drop in sft….and the market will be flooded with buyers…everything would be gone…..
But this appears to be more of a fariy tale or a fiction and not reality……lets see how it unfolds and I have all my sympthies for the people who bought at the peak…do not want to offend them in any way. thanks.
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“After losing people to other provinces for two decades, the province netted more than 9,100 inter-provincial in-migrants in the 12-month period ended Sept. 31, the largest increase on record since 1961.
“The combination of high living costs in Alberta and surging potash, agriculture and uranium sectors have boosted the relative attractiveness of Saskatchewan as a place to work and live,” the report said.”
http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/business_agriculture/story.html?id=cccd5e41-e422-4157-8bcc-498aeeef7499
Seems RE buyers are moving east to the new “land of milk and honey.”
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Alberta will be the strongest region in North America for a long time. I can’t think of a better place to buy and own real estate for the long term.
The going rate for any home renovation is now over $70/hr. That’s before you’ve been to Home Depot and spent your $10,000.00 on cabinets, flooring, or other products. Labour costs aren’t coming down and neither are home prices. We all wish it was 2005 again and I too wish I would’ve bought before the price spiral. A nice 1400 sq foot starter was 220K brand new back then. In Jan 2008, for 285K, I have an 1100 sq ft house that is 50 years old and solid but needs upgrades. That is the new reality for first time buyers. It’s either you buy a new condo with somebody thumping around above your head and playing loud music all weekend or you buy a fixer upper. It’s human nature for people to be cautious as well as greedy. Prices will eventually go up once there is a month or two of 1 or 2% price increases and fence sitters get some confidence that they’re making a investment that will appreciate.
Ok now I’m a little pissed. Actually allot pissed. I didn’t write the following:
“Alberta will be the stongest region in North America for a long time. I can’t think of a better place to buy and own real estate for the long term.”
Please treat this comment as not my own. Some poser speculating loser has decided that he wants to me.
Sheldon or Sara please remove this comment as soon as possible.
Thanks, O
You flippers and speculators are truly desperate. I hope you enjoy bankruptcy.
O
Sheldon and Sara,
Sorry I over reacted at someone posting a comment as me that I would never make. Please leave the comment as is on this blog. It just goes to show the extent that the Bulls are worried about the market. If that is the lengths they have to go to keep this market a float god bless them. It not only confirms everything I’ve thought for a while, but also tells me that they too are worried about the direction of the market. What a joke.
O
the market will not be influenced by this board. use this board for info and education,and keep your negative 2 cents to your self. ffs… man stop spaming all this bull bs dont hate the fact people capatilized when the timing was right. it is called being a risk taker and all you negative ball less people posting negative info involving crashes and down falls need to remember we are in the strongest enconomy in canada. and we will be the last fall.i turned 3 properties in 3 years and almost came close to losing money on one investment. but you dont here me complaining.
man i cant believe i toke the time to right this i am as bad as you- lol…
O,
I am very sorry for using your handle,it was not intentional.
I still stand by what I said about Alberta, and no, I am far from bankrupt. I am 49 years old, built and sold a drilling company and now do consulting work for my former clients in Calgary.
Although I do not consider myself a speculator I just sold my SW high end bungalow that I had Managen Homes build for a tidy profit of $200,000 in less than 2 years. I have designed, built, lived in and sold 2 times in the last 4 years for a total net of $400,000. I did not build my last 2 homes to flip, it just turned out that way. You know… changes in life and what we want to have in our lives.
I was lucky and picked geat lots, great home designs and finshed them with nice stuff that buyers seem to love!
I am now buidng my dream; an ocean front cottage 20 minutes from Victoria.
I will finish my B.C. home for about $800,000 including the lot and I feel beacuse of the uniqueness it will be worth close to a million in 2 years. But….I am not selling it, I now have my dream house in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
I feel so lucky!!
I actually own a nice condo in Victoria that was also not bought to flip, I saw it on MLS viewed it, bought it and rented the last 3 years. I though I would move to it eventually but am now going to sell it for a profit of about $130,000 in 3 years.
I guess I will change my comment to Alberta and B.C. will be the strongest regions in North America for a long time.
I can’t think of better places to to own real estate for the long term!
One more thing, why would you wish backruptcy on anyone? When you think negative thoughts you invite negativity into yur life.
Sorry P,
Congratulations on your success and contrary to the above posts I’m not a “success hater”. Nor usually that negative. With hindsight being 20/20 it’s clear I over reacted. I also don’t wish bankruptcy on anyone. As you can see I’m quite passionate about this debate and maybe I should take Saab’s early suggestion (not directly to me but to people in general) and divert some of my time to another hobby.
Ryan,
I disagree with your comment that blogs like this can’t have an affect on the market. The comments from Sheldon and Sara’s prior post on buying at the peak has someone asking for advice who is moving from Ontario. I also suspect there are a wide range of readers who don’t comment on the blog.
Everybody Else,
Sorry you had to read this drivol. I try to keep my posts informative and thought provoking. This is one instance where I deviated from that.
P,
I wouldn’t be quite that naive to think things will continue at the pace they have.
I suggest you read the article in yesterdays post.
“In addition to Edmonton and Calgary, new listings surged in Vancouver, Ottawa, London and Victoria. Calgary and Victoria set a new record for homes listed for sale in a month.”
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=314073
I can’t see what will turn this ship around. And we all have seen what happened to markets in the states with ballooning inventory. But everyone here seems to think “we are different” “not going to happen here”.
For Justone and bad,
Don’t forget that looking at 3rd quarter stats from 07 only tells us what we already know…the real key is what will be. Let’s take a look at the lay of the land in July/Aug/Sept last year. House prices in Alberta were just starting to come off their all time highs and inventory was quickly rising due to a combination of new homes coming on the market due to rampant investor activity and spec sales, as well as out migration as a lot of Sask people were moving back home and sticking 200,000.00 bucks in their pocket on a similar house in Regina.
The landscape has changed a lot since then. It is no longer a significant advantage dollar wise to move out of Edmonton and move to Regina. One of my co-workers won a bid into Regina with the same job he’s employed in now in Edmonton. He went house hunting in Regina, crunched the numbers and he is now not going and staying here. Since the 3rd quarter house prices have gone up probably 15% in Regina and down 10-15% here. Houses are probably still 50-75 thousand cheaper in Regina for the same thing but add in the fact property taxes are at least double if not more(I know, I lived and owned a house in Regina from 95-02), and their pst is what 6 or 8 percent…it’s no longer a slam dunk. Also prices are expected to go up another 30 percent this year in Regina. I believe it…as of yesterday there were 161 houses of all types for sale in Regina between 100,000 and 1,000,000. That would come out to about 800 homes of all types if they had Edmonton’s population. So if you can even find a house equal to what you have here…you’ll likely end up in a bidding war. Sound familiar!
Right now in Edmonton you have a fantastic selection with a solid buyers market, that will not last forever as the market has been compensating as it always will. I read on Bob Trumans site that in Calgary new sfh starts are forecast to be 6400 in 2008….compare that to about 11,000 in 2006. That is the sound of a market correcting an imbalance.
If it was me looking for a house here to live in (as opposed to doing a quick flip) I’de be out there right now beating the bushes looking for exactly what I want at a price I’m willing to pay because there are a lot of great deals. Don’t get caught waiting on the sidelines with a whole bunch of other people because when the healines in the paper start being “house prices rise 2%” or “inventory dropping”, you won’t have the same opportunities.
I do not know one person that is selling property because they want a rental unit. They are selling because of r3ecent financial sucess or they are downsizing because of an empty nest. Also, I know many pewople that own a 2nd home in expensive markets such as Kelowna & Victoria.
I guess if things go bad as some of you say, people with money snap up the real estate that has the best value and hold it until a later date. That’s life…always has been, always will be.
P,
Investing in real estate is the flavour of the month right now. Before that it was high tech stocks, emerging markets etc. My point is real estate isn’t the only game in town. Sure everyone thinks the party goes on forever – but does it?. I would follow the ‘smart money’ if I were you. I’m not considering a second property for that very reason -diversification.
The people I know that own 2nd homes have them to enjoy first and as investment 2nd. I think that is a good rule of thumb.
They are already diversified.
People, what are your thoughts, Don Campbell still thinks Alberta is the place to be but for long term investors:
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=d905a8a1-8ec9-4f83-a109-90258db991e1
In,
Well for starters he neglects to define long-term and makes a lot of assumptions and baseless forecasts. I think what he’s trying to say is “I don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few years but if you hang in there you might do well someday”.
People buying second homes for enjoyment first and investment second, as indicated by P, are partly investing and partly consuming the “good” that is housing. These people, like people buying homes to live in long term are not the “problem”. Using that term perhaps a little too harshly. That’s the smart enjoyable way to invest in real estate. And makes good “household economics” especially if your second property is located elsewhere (i.e. Victoria; Vancouver; BC Interior; the Mountains; etc.)
I think the other side of this coin are people who maybe had a house pre-2006. Have used that equity to buy 1 or 2 or 3 condos; or fix-up-to-flip SFDs; all within the same market (e.g. Edmonton). To the extent that these people are handy; have done the cash flow analysis accurately; don’t mind the work renting the thing out; and have a long term hold horizon; they’ll probably do relatively ok. To the extent that they’ve bought the condos or SFDs as a short-term flip banking on people always coming to Alberta, I think they’re in for a paradigm shift.
The sad situation is that if the market doesn’t correct, allot of Albertan’s will need to basically sign-up for higher term amortization products (i.e. 30,35,40 years) to buy there move up property or their first property (because there has been no corresponding increase to income). Between the additional interest paid to the bank; the longer payment window; the and the obvious negative impact on savings for retirement and retirement planning; I fail to see how this is “economic progress”.
How this is in the best interest of the household? Are all these households going to cry to the government that they need greater OAS and CPP when they retire because they couldn’t save? Not to mention, how are you to retire, especially early, when your saddled with one of these things.
I think people shouldn’t be “embracing” these products. I think people should be rejecting them en-mass. I think they should be telling the sellors of these products that the additional interest paid on them is obnoxious and that they fail to see the logic of saving a couple hundred a month on the payment over 40 years relative to 25 years. Which is what the math works out to be.
O,
The market has corrected. Around 15% but many outlying areas it’s probably more like 20%+. I’m not sure what you would consider a correction. If you’re looking for 2004 prices without a corresponding downturn in the general economy, forget it. If there is a big downturn, then we’ve all got problems. As for interest rates, by most accounts they’ll be significantly lower by this time next year. So when you buy, you get falling interest rates….hence lower payments, and when you see them start to go up you lock in for 5 or 7 years and you get stable payments. Just ask yourself a question….what did your parents pay for their house in 1968? I have always said…if you’re buying long term you’ll always come out ahead, if you’re buying for a year or two, you have some seriously big cajones. The loans that don’t make any sense to me are things like car loans, in which you pay interest on a product that is depreciating in value from the day you buy it!
The price of housing in any area, simply reflects the general economy at large. It’s high in the west right now because that’s where the money is. If you want a dirt cheap house, there’s plenty in Windsor, along with 10% unemployment.
I believe the reason we’ve had a correction in the market is because the spike in 06/early 07 was caused by rampant speculation. In other words the true market was manipulated/distorted. Hopefully we’ll be getting back into the balanced market soon that everyone should be hoping for and we can have some price stability.
Of course all bets are off if the various levels of gov’t decide for environmental reasons to shut down the oil sands. Then you can have all the houses you want real cheap!
Hey Itchy…
I think we’re down by about 10% in SFDs… not sure what the otter lying areas are… but we’re still 20-30% above the cohort of second tier Canadian City’s. I doubt this correction is over yet despite the positive economic local picture. I’ve got no expectation that were going to see 2004 or 2005 prices. But I think we’re up 50-60% from those levels right now. And to that extent I think we’re going to give back 10-30% by the time all is said and done (i.e. peak-to-trough).
Some people may think this is nuts. But I agree with you that there was allot of “rampant speculation”. Speculation that everyone was denying in the press at the time. Suddenly, now people are admitting it. I just see too many vacant houses on MLS; too many ones with fall/spring pictures; hear too many sob stories of people in bridge financing (2 mortgages); hear too many people adamant that there house is worth $x when they’ve gotten no offers and very little through traffic; etc.
I still think were in a 2 phase correction. The lackluster stats we’ve seen to date have been downplayed because an “affordability correction” is being glossed over and painted as a regular “seasonal correction”. It’s not going to be until later in the spring/summer until people realize that their into a broader correction.
O,
I absolutely agree that stats were lackluster from last summer until maybe a month or 2 ago. We had the 2nd best Jan. sales 2nd only to 2007(spec sales). There are a lot of people on the sidelines that have been waiting for a signal that we’re not going to crash. The psychology of the housing market in Alberta (more than anywhere else I think), is in large part a product of past housing markets. It’s either a boom or a bust and there’s nothing in between. One can hardly be critical of that for people who have lived here for 20 or 30 years. We’ve had 2 or 3 months of very steady prices with a little uptick here the first half of Feb., while Calgary has been going up as well even though they also have high inventory. The last affordability index had us at the very low end of the group with Calgary, Toronto etc. We were at 43, where as a city like Montreal in the catagory below us, where affordability is not as big a concern was at 37. Now those figures are based on 3rd quarter 2007. Where were our housing prices then and where are they now? We still lead the country in wage growth and interest rates are lowering. Once we burn through the largest part of the new spec homes that are sitting out there empty, inventory should return to more normal levels say 5000 or so.
Now here is where we have some agreement. The 1st half of the year is where sales historically, have been the strongest, same with price growth. The market can apparently (because the same is happening in Calgary) handle say 8 or 9 thousand listings. If we have 10,000 listings in Sept/Oct 08 as we did in Sept/Oct 07 the market will go down some more. However it shakes out, up in spring down in fall or whatever, I’ll bet we’re not 5 percent up or down from where we started 08 unless something bad happens to the general economy.
cheers
O,
You are definitely right about Alberta being a good place to buy real estate. I couldn’t agree more.
Itchy,
At the moment the starts are less, this will certainly help in consuming the inventory, but, correct me if I am wrong..
Half of the boom was related to this construction of houses and land development..now when this is slowing down then who the hell needs a house to live and who the hell needs a rental place to stay…see how the rents are sliding down.
Cut short, if the hosuing sector is slowing down, it will certainly reduce the demand for hosuing and rentals…and so this reduction in starts may sink the prices as well..
Itchy and O..your comments
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The following is true for any investment, including RE in Alberta:
“I always find it amazing how many people put so much effort into trying to figure out why markets do what markets do and where markets are going to go in the future.
(…)
Investors need to do a better job understanding the risk they need to take as opposed to what they want to take. It’s more objective and a better way to assess risk tolerance.
The best way to figure out how much risk you need to take is to prepare a financial plan and see what kind of return you need versus what kind of return you want.
The more wealth you have, the less risk you probably need to take.
The bottom line is when you put yourself into a strong financial position, you can probably weather stock-market volatility much better. In other words, focus your efforts on things that will put you in a better financial position like saving more money, increasing your earning power, reducing your debt and controlling your spending.
Most people do little to no research on investments. For those that do some research, most of it is one-dimensional — a focus on past returns. If you want to become a successful investor, then it is important to do better research.”
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/money/story.html?id=b5517b90-a973-4f02-981b-1dcaea25e60e
One needs to do a good research to find the best investment strategy and if in fact it is RE in Edmonton.
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Justone,
I’m not sure the portion of the boom that’s attributed to the residential construction industry, but I’m sure it was significant. However I think you may be jumping to the conclusion that since the need for these workers will be less that they will somehow be unemployed. There is a tremendous backlog in construction in many sectors including commercial/industrial etc.(maybe on that new arena that you and I are going to pay for haha). I’ll tell you the one group it will help…Homeuilders. I think O had alluded to the fact that the spread in new move-up homes vs. resale had widened quite a bit and most of that is attributable to the out of control cost of labour and land. Homebuilders were poaching trades left right and center and they were getting ridiculous bonuses etc. to come work for a different company because the demand was so great and the pool of qualified trades was so small in comparison. With trades and land developers not having so much pricing power now, I think that gap will shrink.
As for rents….There is very few things I know less about lol. Are rents going down? I think the only reference to rents I’ve seen were about slowing increases in Calgary…but increases none the less.
Bottom line Justone, I look at the last 8 months and I see nothing but stories of Royalty reviews/Lowering migration/huge cutbacks in oil/gas drilling/oversupply of houses and dropping prices and this is where we are at price wise. I draw comparisons with the stock market …..when the bad news is priced in and I believe it is, it’s time to buy because nothing goes up forever and nothing goes down forever. I look to the underlying economy and ask myself, will these headlines continue or will we start to see stories about a revival in the natural gas drillers(I see the price today is 8.85….3 months ago it was 6.75, plus steady Eddie is now talking about reducing the royalties on certain types of drilling because of “unintended consequences” duh). Will we soon see stories on rising house prices (they’re up 2-3% so far in Feb). How about lowering inventory(reduced new starts). How about housing affordability issues in Sask. (believe me that one is coming soon), and improving affordability in Alberta (highest wage growth in Canada, with prices down 10-15%).
Sorry I’m so wordy, but for me I try to filter out a lot of the emotional noise in any given short term period and ask myself pretty basic questions on economic strength and outlook and apply that to the intangible of public mood. I’m certainly not a raging bull, nor am I a Bear. Had there not been the correction we’ve had, I probably would be saying prices will go down, but I think where we are now leaves room for 3-5% price growth every year until something dynamic happens one way or the other to the general economy. Of course 2 years from now we might be having this conversation in the unemployment line!
cheers
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Affordability is definitely an issue.
“But in spite of the increase in earnings, family debt has risen even faster across the country, as parents struggle with huge spikes in house prices, increased rents and the high cost of raising kids.
Clarence Lochhead, executive director for the institute, says despite the positives in a booming economy, the rising cost of living hits many people hard.
“Folks are struggling to deal with paying rents or just trying to get into the housing market. Home ownership has become a fleeting aspiration for many.”
Across Canada, the improvement in hourly earnings, combined with more earners per household and reduced tax payments, has translated into a real average household income rise — the largest occurring in 2006 at 2.6 per cent, while last year was slightly over one per cent.
But total family debt is now at a new record of 131 per cent of household income after taxes and deductions. That compares to only 91 per cent in 1990.
Lochhead admits much of it isn’t due to bad financial management, it’s just trying to keep up with mortgages, car payments or household bills.”
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/city/story.html?id=5dbc4f71-9436-4d07-945a-39f9c7be21a4&p=1
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I think this speaks for itself:
http://polarissells.com/search_mls_map_form1.php
We’re already over 10k ….
Polaris’ count must be including commercial properties… They’ve got 4998 residential, 2714 condo and 861 acreage which does not add up to 10205.
Edmonton is a city of skilled labourers (spend more on beer and truck, less on house). The current affordability numbers are too high for Edmonton. Given its culture, it should have the lowest affordability number. The prices must come down.
BUT
Since home is not a very liquid asset, the prices decreases will be sticky.
BUT
Don’t forget, the housing correction in Edm and Calgary have come at a time the price of oil has shot up to $100.
One must conclude that the price appreciation in Edm is over for the short and medium term. But I would not bet on a big downturn.
NEWS FLASH.
A COMPANY THAT OWNS UP TO 2500 PROPERTIES IN EDM (MOSTLY CONDOS) WILL BE PUTTING UP ALL OF THEIR PROPERTIES RIGHT AFTER THE PROVINCIAL ELECTION.
IT HAS CURRENTLY ONE BUILDING UP FOR SALE (250 UNITS) AND ONLY 20 HAVE BEEN SOLD IN THE PAST 6 MONTHS THAT IT HAS THEM UP.
THIS BUILDING AND ITS UNITS ARE NOT BEING SOLD THRU MLS.
A collapse in April….?
Depending on how (and how quickly) they choose to sell those units…
do they not see things are not moving fast?
Sam, where did you see this article that states that this company is selling 2500 units. Was it a reputable source?
Sam, I think I know what you’re talking about. A couple of my co-workers have front row seats for this. These are not NEW BUILD condo’s. These are units which are currently being rented…some built as condo units and some going to condo conversions. The company in question simply wants out of the rental business and into the condo business. They wanted to do this last July or August and actually opened up a sales office in one of their units in Mcewan and closed it 3 months later as very few sales. They offered current tenants (my co-workers included) a bit of a deal. They pay 1470 a month right now for a 2 bedroom apartment and were told they could buy it for 285,000. If that’s a deal then they’ll probably be up for 290,000-300,000 somewhere.
They’ve been peddling these for a while in dribs and drabs. If a particular apartment hasn’t sold when the lease is up…they extend the lease by 3-6 months. So if you go to their sales office, there will be different availability times for various apartments/condos in various areas of the city. How would you like to be renting in one of those units, not knowing when you’ll be out. One are a young couple and she is very pregnant with their 1st child, and simply can’t afford the extra 300.00 a month to buy it as a condo, plus pay fees on top of that.
As for putting them up after the election, it all sounds real ominous and conpiratorial, but I don’t see a conection. I suspect the timing has more to do with putting them up at high time for sales.
I think it’s important to realize that the vast majority of these condo/apartments are already occupied so the effect on the resale market will be very little. The big glut of NEW BUILD condo’s doesn’t come on in earnest until fall/winter of 08/09, then we may certainly have a condo oversupply.
Hope this sheds some light. If you have info on something different Sam let us know. It just sounded exactly like the situation my co-workers were in.
cheers
Sam,
I agree with your skilled labour; Cullture; Demographic; arguement. We’re a blue-collar-government-town. Not comparable to either centres of business (Toronto/Calgary) or world caliber cities (Vancouver). I’m sure someone will disagree with me on this one though.
Economics and pricing are driven by scarcity. For instance, scarcity of land to build homes on. For the people that think we’re going to be a Toronto or Vancouver please just go to Google Maps and check out the geographic constraints facing Toronto (Lake Ontairo/Erie; Greenbelt) and Vancouver (Ocean; Coastal Mountains; etc.). High population density’s in constrained areas force prices to be structurally higher. Last time I checked Edmonton and Calgary have no such constratints.
Sam and Itchy,
The one thing I’ve been wondering about and I throw it out for discussion is does anyone know the affect of these condo conversions (or rent hikes) on the attitude of tenants? One would think that rentors tend to be new migrants to the province either internationally or provincially. In addition to the press Alberta has been getting stating that the “boom is over” we also get these stories of people basically being thrown out of their apartment so that they can convert it into a condo. Worse are the stories where they just hiked the rent and know the existing tenants must pay or leave.
My gut tells me allot of landlords or condo convertors got greedy during the last little while and likely forced out tenants they’d likely love to have during a non-boom period. In some cases where they’ve gone (or been forced back) to their home province I’m sure they’ve got lovely things to say about Alberta. Discussions on how they got taken by their landlord and forced to move back among friends is likely not the same PR the government would want to help attracting moe workers.
I would have to side with no one right now. The market is going to be very sticky this year and prices are going to remain quite static. Saskatoon now costs more to live than Edmonton right now. The Saskatchewan advantage is fading fast. Alberta is on very solid ground right now. There are some great deals out there on property right now and if I was waiting to buy I would be looking now! I suspect we are going to see normal price growth over the next 5 years. I also suspect net migration to Alberta is going to remain very strong. Yes we had a negative blip last year but that’s all it was. Don’t expect net migration or home prices to weaken from here. There are some pockets of weakness in Alberta but not many. Anyone expecting prices to drop much more is living in dreamland. Someone mentioned reduced building will reduce labour demand. Wrong! The number of huge capital projects on the books by the province and cities is massive and will absorb many workers who may need a new job. I have lived in Edmonton for 10 years now and I am still amazed every day at how many are out shopping at all hours of the days! I have never seen so many people out and about before. It is truly an amazing province and it aint the 80′s anymore. Stop waiting for the bust because it’s not gonna happen folks. I work for a large public company and last year we were cautious that things would slow down in 2007. Now we were cautious again entering 2008 but we are now realizing its not slowing down and we are projecting another significant expansion. Not sure where all the negative ideas are coming from but I think people are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
Howdy O,
Excellent questions! Both couples in question are from here (Edmonton I mean), so I’m not sure, about the attitude and such, but you would have to think it wouldn’t say anything great about us wouldn’t you?
The couple that’s paying 1470 for the 2 br apartment had their rent hiked 400.00/month in the last 2 years and I believe it was to get them to a payment level that was close enough to what their monthly payment would be for a mortgage on a condo, so they would buy (I’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist myself lol).
It’s not all bad though because there are lot’s of places that are better than the one they are in now for less money to rent. It’s just the pain in the ass factor with hunting around and moving while expecting a baby soon.
The other one went out and bought a brand new 3 br townhouse that will be ready this summer for about 20,000 more (no condo fees)than what they could have got their 2 br apt for. Which goes to what I’ve been saying about there being some fantastic deals right now if you’re buying and beat the vushes hard enough.
Anon,
I have been looking at Saskatoon’s market and I am not too sure that Edmonton is more affordable than Saskatoon right now.
These are Jan. numbers
SFH Sask 284k
SFH Edm 390k
sask condos 213k
edm condos 257k
One thing that really surprises me is the amount of inventory in Saskatoon. They have less than 200 houses listed right now while Edmonton has almost 4000.
Granted that Saskatoon does not have the wage that Alberta has, but the potential is there with the diversified economy. There is tonnes of potential there.
NEWS FLASH –CORRECTION:
Only about a 1000-1500 units going up for sale not 2500 as reported earlier. Timing – most of them should be up (including those put up earlier and removed) in 2-3 weeks.
Dirty games are being played with rent and lease terms with tenants.
Most tenants have decided not to buy due to the very high value. Tenants are being given 2% off advertised price. Being sold at Sept.2007 $$.
None of these units are part of MLS. This probably doubles condo inventory from what MLS reports.