I was chatting with someone the other day on our cool little chat doo-hickey-thingy (look down and to your left) and they wanted to know what areas of the city were churning through the inventory and what areas were moving slower. So I did some searching in the MLS database and got the answer.
The chart below shows the absorption rates for different areas of the city, as well as for different types and price ranges of properties. The absorption rate is the number of listings currently on the market, divided by the number of sales in the pat 30 days, and it tells you how many months it will take to sell the current inventory if the rate of sales stays the same.
I thought the results were quite interesting. First off,the fastest moving properties within Edmonton are in the University area and south east (right next to the University area) with 4.4 months worth of inventory. Now, this makes a lot of sense since a lot of parents are up in Edmonton looking to buy properties for their kids while they’re in school. Overall it seems that the southern part of the city is performing better than the northern areas.
It seems that Sherwood Park has everyone beat with 3.7 months worth of supply, and I think this is due more to lower inventory than higher demand. Stony Plain on the other hand has the worst absorption rate of 11.5 months, this should have an impact on prices there and is likely due to the distance from Edmonton (typically the closer you are to downtown the better your property will do in down times). Funny thing is the central area has one of the higher rates, and I think this is because of all the new condos and condo conversions on the market in the area.
In terms of price ranges, it appears that $300-$400k is the place to be as a seller, even with the high level of competition in that price range. Bungalows and bi-levels seem to have an advantage over 2-stories; I feel the split levels may be exaggerated because of the small sample size. Single family homes have the advantage over condos.
Just so everyone is clear, I included condos and single family homes (no land, rural or recreational properties) in Edmonton, St. Albert, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain and Sherwood Park. I broke up the city into areas which you can see on the map below (click the map for a larger image). I’m sure some will disagree with my generalizations but that’s the best way I could think of to do it.
