Edmonton Real Estate Market Update
Here is our update on the Edmonton real estate market. (Previous week’s numbers are in brackets). For the past 7 days:
New listings: 522 (531, 486, 483)
# Sales: 239 (235, 231, 256)
Ratio: 46% (44%, 48%, 53%)
# Price changes: 211 (211, 192, 186)
# Expired/Off Market Listings: 125 (124, 102, 216)
Net loss/gain in listings this week: 158 (172, 153, 11)
Active single family home listings: 2631 (2525, 2371, 2279)
Active condo listings: 1649 (1569, 1525, 1430)
Homes 4-week running average: $384k ($379k, $377k, $374k)
Condos 4-week running average: $231k ($236k, $234k, $228k)
Edmonton real estate listings and sales
Edmonton real estate prices
The REALTORS® Association of Edmonton is reporting 1055 sales for the Greater Edmonton Area so far this month, which should put us at about the same level as last year.
In other real estate related news, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said we should not expect any new measures in next week's budget to cool housing prices, and that he'd like to see if the market will correct itself as it is already showings signs of doing.
Meanwhile CMHC reports that Ottawa will not raise the limit on the amount of mortgages insured by CMHC of $600 billion, dramatically shrinking the growth of their portfolio. To put this in perspective, CMHC's outstanding insurance rose $170 billion between 2007 and 2010, and they expect it to rise only $30.8 billion between 2011 and 2014. Because CMHC is approaching its limit, it is rationing the amount of portfolio insurance that it sells banks to insure pools of mortgages. Spokesman Charles Sauriol said it is giving priority to insurance for individual homes:
“The allocation of CMHC’s portfolio insurance does not affect the availability of CMHC’s mortgage loan insurance for qualified home buyers and will not impact the cost of buying a house.”
The rationing could affect some lenders, and prompt them to charge more for mortgages.
The BC government is apparently in favour of keeping the market hot, by handing out cash to first time home buyers. The bonus, is a one-time refundable personal tax credit, equal to five per cent of the purchase price of a home to a maximum of $10,000, was announced last month in the provincial budget.
These are all examples of "external forces" that put pressure on the market that we often discuss here on the blog.
Have a great weekend!
About Sara MacLennan
Sara MacLennan is the Director of Marketing at Liv Real Estate and a licensed Real Estate Associate. The bulk of Sara’s experience and wealth of expertise lies in on-line technology and marketing both for agents and consumers. Sara is the former National Director for Interactive Marketing for Coldwell Banker Canada where she was responsible for an extensive training program traveling to offices across the country training agents and brokers on marketing and technology. Find Sara on Twitter @edmontonblogger.
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“…The rationing could affect some lenders, and prompt them to charge more for mortgages…”
Why just some lenders? Won’t this effect all the major banks?
Great update, well written! Thanks!
I think it will mostly apply to lenders that specialize in pooled, riskier mortgages, such as for developers.
Also, I think it will mean that banks will have to be more selective in providing CMHC backed mortgages; that is a person seeking a large mortgage that would require backing may not be able to get the best rate.
The larger banks will be alloted a larger ration of the remaining insurance, meaning they will be better able to cope with this selectivity. Smaller lenders will not have that luxury.
I’ve already started to see ads for companies promoting Syndicated Mortgages, which are non-insured investment products meant to pick up the slack for financing developments that will be unable to get traditional financing. While these companies promise large returns, people should be aware that these are the loans that the banks rejected as being too risky.
Are you sure the average condo price # is correct. Should it not be 231 vs. 213 shown?
Good catch… fixed it.
The line for housing prices looks like it has rocket boosters on it.
Not so much for the line for sales…
Risky buyers, cash back buyers, bad credit buyers, self employed and so on will be out of market either by rejection or approval for lower mortgage. Markets are slowly correcting.