Here 
is our update on the Edmonton real estate market. (Previous week's numbers are in brackets). For the past 7 days:
New listings: 370 (429, 500, 499)
# Sales: 361 (375, 365, 337)
Ratio: 98% ( 87%, 73%, 68%)
# Price changes: 189 (197, 174, 191)
# Expired Listings: 123 (85, 98, 93)
# Withdrawn/terminated/etc. listings: 29 (29, 41, 26)
Net loss/gain in listings this week: -143 (-60, -4, 43)
Active listings for single family homes: 2128 (2185, 2208, 2178)
Active listings for condos: 1714 (1781, 1808, 1828)
The end of month numbers come out tomorrow, so I won't go into too much detail today except to say that the number of sales this month has just blown me away. Looks like we will have over 2200 sales this month, which will be a new record for July (we are currently sitting at 2185 sales):
Looking at this from a weekly perspective, the sales to new listings ratio is extremely high:
I'm going to save the rest of the numbers as a surprise for tomorrow. Happy Weekend!
Housing bottom or the Mother of all Headfakes?
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/293365/Housing-Bottom-No-the-Mother-of-All-Head-Fakes?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,hd,l,len&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=
I love it when idiots like you used generalized cases from entirely different countries to argue your case for Edmonton! Alberta’s market differs dramatically from the rest of our own country… how much more irrelevant does that make your silly article?
wow – 98% ratio is high and it has been relatively high for around 2 months now. Who are these buyers? seems like they have been sitting and waiting for long time. Provincial government has imposed hiring freeze, which will eventually increase unemployment rate, which is already high. On the other hand, TSX and Oil is doing ok meaning increasing. Fall will be interesting! Any educated guesses as to what fall will bring?!?!?!
That is also my question. It is true that the buyers are pushing high the price.
Markets lead, jobs lag…
And housing prices lag the economy typically around 2 years. We have yet to see the job cuts and economic slowdown factored into prices. Stay tuned!
You bet it differs dramatically, Edmonton and Calgary are the most overpriced cities in North America and for what reasons? I can’t think of one!
Unfortunately, what happened in the past happened in the past. It may happen again and it may not. You really have to focus on what is happening now. And now the housing market has been healthy for three months. This is while the job losses and hiring freezes being reported now were happening.
Can you define what you mean by overpriced? You mean living in Edmonton is much more expensive than living in Ontario/BC?
Thats right! Right now, housing market is good (98% ratio) but I think the effects of hiring freezes and job losses is going to happen. I think housing prices are very closely related to jobs because if we continue to see decrease in jobs, housing prices can’t continue to increase – in fact, I think if unemployment rate will continue to rise, we will see a drop in housing prices next year. On the other hand, US economy is starting to improve a bit – second quarter results were quite ok for many companies.
He means he’s bitter that he missed out in 2006 when the market forced him to be a renter forever… I’d be depressed too if I was in his shoes.
Sheldon,
Did you get the average SFH and condo prices for the past week?
I live in blue collar Edmonton. It’s nothing special, a lot of pick up trucks and $370,000 boxes. My last contract has been in Calgary, $108 a night for a Super 8 motel? What a joke.
In the U.S. that 1 star motel goes for $29 a night. I made more money per hour in the U.S. and my expenses were half. We are so overpriced on everything up here in Canada, it’s an absolute joke. No wonder American tourism has fallen off a cliff and we blame it on passport woes crossing the border. LMAO
So, when do you think those some billion jobs lost in the US will come back? Why did you come back to Canada? I bet it was truly good living in the states – must have saved lots of money. I was once offered a job in the US – thank god I didn’t take it. There were many that took those opportunities in the US and now they are stuck caz those consulting jobs are gone – those $130000 salaries seem like a dream now. I would think that Americans dont come to Canada caz they are scared and saving up right now?!?!?! O ‘ well, I took my regular holidays…..
No, the best was pre 2000 contracting in Europe making British Pounds when a pound was worth $2.56 Canadian then the U.S. and last Canada.
I’ve never heard or read of a real estate cycle lagging the economy by two years. I did note however the real estate bust(s) (US first then the smaller AB) preceded the meltdown in the major stock market indexes. Perhaps you could enlighten me to the economist who wrote this. As for impending job cuts and economic slowdown, I disagree. Currently the majority of position in the markets are long with very few economists(I haven’t actually read of any) putting forth the idea that anything is overvalued and shorting is the way to go, which would indicate the majority of major investment decisions are being made with the idea of a recovery in the global economy. Further evidence of a recovering economy is the quick rise in the value of all the bank stocks that I follow, including Manulife, Bank of America, BNS, TD, Royal Bank and CWB. CWB is up over 100% since I took the position 4 or 5 months ago, BofA from a low of 3.14 to a recent close of $14.79! Spectacular! CNOOC and Petrochina are quietly taking up positions in AB oil sands while America foolishly debates “dirty oil” (as though tank, battleships and fighter/bombers will ever be green) and while the most voracious consumer economy in the world is having troubles, China is emerging as a new and perhaps the only superpower in the world and Tata motors has created a 4 passenger car that many if India’s One billion + population can afford. This all points to a strong economic forecast for Canada and AB in general, which means jobs, and well paying ones in the near future for Ab. And lots of people making lots of money in one of the best places for Canada’s youth to find gainful employment should lead to noticeable increases in the price of real estate. But I haven’t got a crystal ball or anything.
I’ll start with the higher than average wages. http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/labr79-eng.htm
Way to lay a smackdown! Nice comment Ian.
Merill Lynch & Co in October 2008 issued a report posted in the G&M regarding the 2 year lag between Canada and the US with Real-estate. Google if you want to find and read although its now over 6 months old so you may need to pay for a G&M subscription to read it in full, otherwise many blogs have pieces of it here and there. Shortly after BMO Capital Market’s Doug Porter showed the same conclusions surrounding the 2 year lag in housing between the US and Canada.
Although there may be great interest in the AB oil projects, we are still leading the country in many disappointing sectors such as unemployment rates, job growth, consumer debt, and delinquencies (mortgage related 90 days +). However I do agree that Alberta future is promising, the short term (3-5 years) hardly points to anything but some hard times for quite a few families. Check the bubble blog for various news articles on this, they like to take refuge in the fact of people getting laid off from big projects related to the oil sands.
Tata motors has been making amazing bounds in affordability since most of last year yet there has been nothing stating that these sales have made any substantial impacts on oil/fuel consumption. Even before last year Tata and others (hyundai, honda, suzuki, kanto, hino, just to name a few) have been making affordable vehicles for that region and have not had the crazy impact your eluding to. There was talk in the past that these affordable vehicles would drive the prices up, but after oil resumed a more normal level after reaching $148/barrel, most of those theories went to the way side.
With China I have to agree they are emerging as a superpower, but only because of the massive hoarding they are currently doing with coal, oil, metals, amongst other precious resources from many different nations (google china hoarding, you’ll find articles from forbes, china daily, and other news agencies reporting the same thing)
Lastly, everything I’ve stated you can find by using google and a few search terms without any issues. As well, any financial institution gaining in the stock market right now is doing so on the backs of the TARP program so I would be wary of wide swings in those stocks over the next year until they get their feet back under them. Many of those institutions have been criticized for calling TARP funds as profit.
Just my $0.02
PS: Smackdown? Hardly.
Correction, any US financial institution who reported losses, not any financial institution, my bad.
Sabb, I think you guys are mixing apples and oranges. Dubina said that real estate lags “the economy” by 2 years, which Ian rightly points out is wrong. You correctly point out that Canada’s real estate market historically lags the U.S. real estate market by 2 years. The U.S. real estate market peaked during spring/summer of 2006. The economy never ran into trouble until summer/fall of 2008. Our housing peaked here in July 2007…about a year after the U.S. and a full year before the economy stated to unravel. It’s also somewhat misleading to say the we are leading the nation in unemployment rates. I believe we lead the nation last month in percentage growth in unemployment but still rank 2nd or 3rd in the nation in overall unemployment rate at around 6.8%. Not very high historically, but certainly double what it was a year ago. Trying to compare our housing market to the U.S. is a favorite pastime of many bears. There are so many structural differences in the 2 countries it’s very hard to compare. Things like types of loans (subprime/jumbo), financial institution liquidity/availability of loans, deductibility of mortgage interest, level of speculation, etc. If you want to just compare the things that are directly comparable, you have to look at inventory levels, and sales. The U.S. has still got around a 9 month absorption rate. Here in Edmonton we’re at what 2.5 or 3. Here in Edmonton we’re setting sales records for the past 2 months and the U.S. is just starting to bounce off the bottom. We are far better placed as far as housing goes. I’m thinking the immediate crisis in Edmonton housing came and went from Aug/07 to Jan/09. There will be a rebound in the economy at some point, just as there will be a recession after an expansion. The key is how far along will that be and how bad will it get til we get there.