Here 
is our update on the Edmonton real estate market. (Previous week's numbers are in brackets). For the past 7 days:
New listings: 406 (501, 621, 432)
# Sales: 316 (344, 340, 330)
Ratio: 78% (69%, 55%, 76%)
# Price changes: 216 (239, 266, 233)
# Expired Listings: 129 (102, 308, 303)
# Withdrawn/terminated/etc. listings: 19 (37, 25, 32)
Net loss/gain in listings this week: -58 (18, -52, -233)
Active listings for single family homes: 2456 (2488, 2486, 2411)
Active listings for condos: 2007 (2015, 1999, 1905)
The blog has suffered at the hands of the busy market this week – we've been too busy to blog! We hope to get more content up next week. Anyway, as you can see sales are down slightly from the past few weeks, but that is likely due to the long weekend.
The Realtors® Association of Edmonton is showing 1,474 sales so far this month, which should put us around 2100-2200 sales this month.
The average residential sale price sits at $327k (down slightly from last week but up from $312k in April), single family homes at $365k, condos at $248k (both down slightly from last week but up significantly from last month).
Have a great weekend!
Not to be pedantic, but I’ve been wondering this for a while: shouldn’t you post stats after the board office closes Friday evening so as to include ALL reported sales for the week? Does posting mid day account for sales that are fed into MLXchange later Friday afternoon? I don’t really know how this works, but I do know sales are always different Friday night than they are Friday afternoon when I check.
Ideally yes…I should post the numbers at 11:59pm every week…. I have a life though
But if they use say, results as of Thursday every week… then it’s been technically a week since the last report. Just different cut off period :p
Sure got quiet around here.
Whats your explanation for the silence? First nice weekend of the year maybe?
I was looking at seasonality and the Edmonton Market, it’s fairly interesting. In 13 of the past 15 years the peak average home price has occurred between April and June, and after these months they go down slowly – even in a normal market the average house price goes down 3-4% from the peak til the end of the year.
The exception years were 1994 where the market peaked in February – this appears to be due to interest rates (went down to 7.25% which was the lowest they had been in 25 years at that point). The other exception year wss 2006 where the market went up and up and up (“bubble year”).
Another interesting fact about ’94 is interest rates went up 2% in the course of the year and that caused prices to drop thru 1997 (thru 2000 adjusted for inflation), so the low interest rates may work well as short term stimulus but work to the detriment of the long term.
Anyways I was interested by the sharp seasonal trends in the Edmonton market. I also thought I’d prempt the news releases that say “Real Estate Merket Recovers” at the end of the month by pointing out the season trend in pricing
.
Good synopsis Andrew…thanks for that.
I think people who were cheering the last few weeks of spring activity and calling the end of the slow price correction are now being quiet because it may be that this IS just spring activity. I guess for those who choose to look at realestate stats week-over-week instead of year-over-year, this is not a good week.
Cheers,
E-town
How is this a bad week? New listings are way down, and sales are way up. It was a 4 day week, the 5 day equivalent would be 395 which is the highest week yet.
On a note of optimism I’ll add that in any market there are still great deals out there, but they sell very quickly. For example this weekend I looked at a split level in Laurier Heights that was listed at $329,000…about 140,000 cheaper then the next cheapest house (and 800 sq feet largesr) there (average sale price in Laurier Heights is $494,000).
The house was vintage 70s and probably needed 15K work for paint, carpet and general updates but with that work would have, in my opinion, easily been worth 400K in todays market. That’s assuming an inspection revealed no major problems.
Needless to say it sold in under a day. If you work with a Realtor find one who will do daily (or more) searches for you to help you find these bargains.
Keep in mind I look at Real Estate as an investment, for those looking for a home it’s a different deal..as ones primary home is typically not an investment and over time likely won’t lose money…I think 2004-2007 that false expectations were make concerning RE appreciation, when more typically it keeps pace with inflation, some years losing a bit, other years gaining a bit.
Maybe people are tired of the circular dialog? The bears or the bulls will come out once the evidence gets clearer and supports a view a bit more definitively.
According to the graph above and Andrew’s detective work – it looks like if history repeats itself we’ve seen the peak sales volume and price for 2009.
I guess it’s true what they say “sell in May and go away!”
In my opinion, we are reaching the bottom for real estate prices. Current prices are nearing the long-run average annual price appreciation trend line. We’ll probably overshoot a little due to the difficulty in obtaining credit, but not by much. I think we’ll go sideways for quite sometime…
For context, I work in the US at an Orange County Property Management Company.
Cheers!
Yeah Spud. That’s the best explanation. I think further “analysis and extrapolation” is not going to make autumn come any faster!
Cheers,
E-town
http://www.greaterfool.ca/2009/05/26/the-greatest-fools/
Regardless of where the average and median price are going right now, I am starting to suffer from a case of “cold feet” when it comes to getting back into the market.
We sold in April 2007, thinking that our little McMansion on the ravine had hit its price peak and that a price decline was imminent. The plan was to sit on the sidelines until things settled, and then hopefully get something even nicer for the same amount of money.
Well, we were right, prices have come down quite a bit, and we can now have the walk-out, the 3-car garage, the granite countertops, and all the other luxuries for the same price of a house that didn’t have any of these features (although it had the ravine).
However, is it actually a smart thing to buy a high-end property, today?
The Edmonton and Area market seems to have a very high percentage of high-end homes for sale, and they are moving very slowly. This makes me wonder how long it would take to sell such a property again, and what price drop we might need to accept, should we need to relocate for any reason, within the next few years.
So, keeping the “little pig we are currently putting lipstick on”, which comes with wonderful neighbors and has a great location, seems a much better proposition, if we want to preserve our investment and retain maximum flexibility.
I am afraid that even a great property will suffer from the future competition coming from an abundance of dinner-plate sized homes on cocktail napkin-sized lots, or McMansions on acreages with a long commute….
Am I getting too old and risk adverse, or does anybody else also wonder about the future of our high-end inventory?
You hit the nail on the head. The high-end homes aren’t selling and the only way they will is when prices drop – which in turn will drag down prices of lower end homes along the way.
Immigrants love McMansions and this is not meant to be racist. I’m just saying that immigrants seem to be more family oriented and are more willing to live with parents, family, extended family. They also seem to like the 2400+ sq/ft houses that the whole family can share. Just an observation in the my neighborhood. Alberta and Edmonoton seem to be getting the major share of new immigrants these days.
The average HOUSEHOLD income of immigrant families in Edmonton is 50K, I don’t imagine they are buying up McMansions in any great volumes.
Your immigrations stats are a bit off as well. Alberta has high immigration, but Calgary gets twice as many immigrants as Edmonton. Indeed the booming metropolis of Winnipeg gets more international immigration then Edmonton.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2008/permanent/02.asp
In the stats you posted take a look at what cities are increasing in immigration and what cities have been decreasing since 2004. The west is getting a bigger and bigger share of immigrants and Edmonton is one of the winners. Just for a different look at the numbers, since 2004 Edmonton is up 49% while Winnipeg is only up 38%. Also Winnipeg is the only major city in Manitoba while Edmonton is one of two in Alberta, Calgary being the other. And I’m not even going to comment on your remark about immigrants families not being able to afford McMansions. If that’s true I guess I better go tell about 60% of my neighbors to get out the neighborhood, they can’t afford to live here… Well according to Andrew anyway.
Some people think that if you don’t drive a new beamer or benz and have a 3000 Square foot spec house you don’t count as a real person. I think this sort of materialsm is the plight of all human beings – not any one race or culture in particular. Some are definately more “in your face” about their posessions than others though. What other people’s banks own really does not impress me much anyways – especially money on credit squandered on depreciating luxury items that are really all about showmanship and ego stroking. My dad, retired, driving a rusty old car, with no debt and enough money to outlast his retirement – all done on a working man’s salary – now that impresses me. Young house flippers driving hummers around leveraged to within a paycheck of bankruptcy? Not so much.
Cheers,
E-town
DaBull,
Some Immigrants may live in McMansions, but I am guessing it’s a minority of them as most immigrants I know couldn’t afford a 1,000,000 house.
You stated originally that Edmonton seems to be getting the “major share” of immigration, so I’ll agree that it’s increasing but but when you compare us per capita to other Western Cities (Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver) we lag behind by quite a bit..,so “Major Share” is a misnomer, “a share” or “an increasing share” is more correct.
Not a big deal, just a pet peeve of mine that we often overstate our economic fundimentals.
What is hell is with the rant above??? The discussion was about who was going to buy McMansions in the future. Not about who has the most stuff or who has the most credit bought stuff. All stuff does is fill up your McMansion so you have buy a bigger McMansion or rent self-storage for your stuff. Did you know the amount of self-storage has increase dramaticaly in recent years and all because we need to store our excess stuff that even our biggest McMansion can’t hold anymore.
Here watch this, it’s about stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac
Beside, isn’t the point of life: “Whoever dies with the most stuff wins”.
Andrew
I wrote “Alberta and Edmonoton seem to be getting the major share of new immigrants these days”
Dictionary definition of “seem”: to appear to be true, probable, or evident: It seems likely to rain. Doesn’t mean it going to rain, only it’s likely. I didn’t state that “Edmonton was receiving the majority of immigrants” as a fact.
Jess… a little anal rentetive aren’t we.
Hey, you guys need to get in touch with your “Inner Bob Layton”. Ranting is good for your blood pressure. Did you know people who rant are 56% less likely to go on an office shooting spree? It’s true!
Cheers,
E-town
“37% of all statistics are made up on the spot.”
E-town,
I am with you: ranting is good for one’s blood pressure
I agree with your comments about people who are close to being maxed out on various forms of credit to afford their lifestyle.
That’s exactly why I am afraid to buy an expensive property, at this time.
Once interest rates go up, or all those lines of credit are maxed out, or the stress of keeping up appearances gets the better of a marriage, I am worried that we’ll see a lot of higher priced homes back on the market.
I don’t want to get caught in that buyer’s market for high-end homes then, with my own possibly among them, if I want to move….