Our preliminary report on the real estate market in Edmonton in August shows prices are rising while sales are on the decline. When this occurs, we typically see prices levelling off within a month or two, followed by year over year price declines before the cycle starts again. 706 single family homes sold through the MLS® system in Edmonton in August, down from 716 last August and 831 last month.
Edmonton single family home sales
358 condos sold in August down from 398 last year and 412 last month.
Edmonton condo sales
The average price of single family homes increased in August to $393,898 from $381k last year and $389k last month while the median sale price increased to $358k from $354k last year and $356k last month. The average price of condos also rose to $244,499 from $237k last year and $242k last month and the median price rose to $223k from $220k last year and $215k last month.
Edmonton real estate prices
The average price per square foot of single family homes was $264, up from $257 last year but down from $267 last month. The average price per square foot for condos was $232 – equal to last month and up from $228 last year.
Edmonton price per square foot
As always this is our preliminary report on the Edmonton real estate market, our final monthly report on the greater Edmonton area will be posted when the numbers are released by the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton.
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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Yawn….
Housing news as it usually is….boring.
All the big banks raised their (my) dividends last week.
Reinvest most of it….start planning half of winter under a palm tree…enjoy your cold, indebted granite folks! Ex wife made me house poor and never would have stopped Only buy what you can easiy afford..life is too short to worry about the Joneses!
One that doesn’t care about the Joneses won’t even bother writing such a post.
Love how you make this discussion personal every time WSN.
Merely pointing out that living is as or more important that what you live in.
One can still own one’s home, be it a tiny condo or modest house, and still be happy and carefree.
Happiness doesn’t mean you have to be renting.
And many people, myself included, own a home and are not indebted in a slavery-time existence. My house payments are lower than what I’d pay to rent a tiny apartment. I don’t worry about the Joneses. I’m quite happy where I am.
And I don’t wish to spend my winters under a palm tree. I like winter. I love hockey. Can’t play much hockey down south. Besides, too much southern sun will give you skin cancer.
What a “humble” post from you GM! You don’t care about the Joneses? Didn’t you just brag how you made 30 percent (or some other obviously made up number) a year off of your investment portfolio? Also, funny how many people on here come on to brag about them making money on real estate, humble indeed!
almost as humble as real Garth Turner…
Sorry, I didn’t know I was bragging.
You (or someone here) asked me what kind of return I was making and I merely gave him the information he was looking for.
If I was a dentist and you asked me how much I made each year and I told you, would it then be “bragging” because I told you and it turned out to be more money than what you make?
It must be hard to be any of your aquaintances with you being so jealous of everything others have which you do not.
Sounds a lot like “Keeping up with the Jones’s” syndrome to me.
- Person claims to be making obviously false amounts of money in stock market (listen Gordon Gecko, if you were making that return, what are you doing here, why aren’t you in some tropical island somewhere?)
- I say that any person who openly flaunts made up money, isn’t humble. Clearly is concerned with what other people think about him/her.
- Person shoots back that I’m obviously jealous of them and their “piles of money”, that I’m concerned with competing with other people because I don’t believe outlandish claims.
Makes sense to me. Were you that guy I saw on Whyte Ave with 20 gold chains around his neck last weekend?
Loyal long time reader, first time I’ve posted because I’m getting tired of this “troll” Sara and Sheldon.
Not that it matters but I don’t believe the 30% claim…when was that claim made?..must have been when i was on a blog holiday.
Prudent inverters I know are netting out 5~8% these days with minimal risk. Some investments have done 30% but no one in their right mind would put all their money in such a small risky basket.
Oh wise one please enlighten us with a stock pick our two. Even better…prove your 30% and I will happily pay you 10% of my portfolio every year for the info!
You want stock picks?
Buy GLD and SLV (US markets) right now and tell me how you did in six months.
Right now GLD is at 164.48 and SLV is at 31.36.
Let me know how you’re doing on Dec 31st.
Those are commodity ETFs, not stocks.
As someone with a finance degree and several years of experience working in the markets, I have to agree with the others here that I find your statements hard to believe.
For example, earlier you stated you use options to hedge your equity positions to enhance your returns. This an absurd statement. Using options in this way is akin to paying a premium for portfolio insurance. It will typically decrease risk, and returns.
In order to generate large returns using options, you would need to speculate with them.
To be fair to you, perhaps that is what you are doing while mistakenly using the word “hedge”.
Ever heard of selling call options on your equity positions?
Yes.
That is not “hedging”. That is using options to speculate on stock price movements.
If the stock price rises, you gain on your equity position as per normal and also keep the premium that was paid on a now worthless option.
if the stock price falls, you lose on your equity position and also on your option position.
Your risk is increased, not decreased.
This not hedging. Hedging would be, for example, buying put options on your long equity positions.
My bad I misread your comment as regarding put options. The situation you’re talking about would hedge a long equity position.
In doing so, you are putting a ceiling on your returns. If the stock price rises beyond your options’ strike your gains will be limited. This is hedging. It clearly does not enhance your returns.
Perhaps you are both hedging your portfolio and speculating with options to increase returns. Maybe that’s what you meant to say in the earlier thread?
I certainly wish earning 30% annualized returns for many years was as easy as learning basic stock option trades, but it just isn’t so.
Anyone follow my advice and buy GLD and SLV?
Didn’t think so.
GLD is now at 171.50 and SLV is at 33.57.
Not bad returns for one week.
No, I don’t speculate on commodities. Good on you though.
Inspector Gadget, have you ever invested in stocks?
If you have, you would know that it’s very easy to obtain 30% capital gain in one year. Especially after the 2008 crash. There has been a great recovery, if you have missed the news.
What’s difficult, is gaining 30% every year for 10 or 20 years. But GM never claimed that. If his “brag” is about the past couple years, I do believe him.
I would suggest that is possible to obtain a 30% absolute return in one year, but it is not very easy, unless market conditions are somewhat extreme.
GM’s comments implied he is able to consistently generate 30% annual returns, because he learned what options are. This is absurd. Or maybe I misunderstood him. Maybe he meant he has been averaging 30% returns for the past year or two, and naively expects this to continue long-term.
I completely agree with you GoodWillRenting, claimed 30% returns over a prolonged period as GM is claiming is absurd. Yes WSN, GM did claim that he has been averaging 30%, “been doing so for years ” if i may quote the great one. This comment was made in the Aug.24 weekly update 8 posts down.
Over the past 3 years to be exact.
Of course I don’t expect this to continue but it has been a good run.
And thanks for putting me in the same category as Wayne Gretzky.
Inspector Gadget
Try some Canadian ones instead…. CEN and WZR. Some good ones to watch for a buy signal are POE and MMT, they both just got wacked lately, but fundamental they are sound companies and well worth the risk. If you like dividend payers try MMP.U it’s paying over 15% divee yield and is showing good signs of future capital appreciation for the same reasons that GM is buying GLD and SLV. HNU is also one to watch, if it drops below $10 bucks, back up the truck.
PS: I believe in CEN so much that it’s 85% of my portfolio right now, which is crazy, but that’s how much I believe that this is a great company and a great investment.
I’m with Tomas. Lately this blog has just turned into bragging rights and arguments for a select few that most of the time aren’t even relevant to the subject.
Hmmm. If you bought Boardwalk REIT a year ago, you would have made about 30% between capital gains and dividends. And I don’t see how putting all your money into one physical asset (i.e. an Edmonton house) is any riskier than putting it all into one blue chip stock. Especially if you’re using leverage (i.e. a mortgage) to buy the house. link to google.ca
Well, a REIT would typically own many properties in several different locations bought at different times and valuations relative to the cash flow they generate, rather than one particular property in one city bought at a single point in time. The REIT is much more diversified than a single house.
However putting your entire net worth into one particular common stock or REIT is still quite risky, as is putting your entire net worth into a house. You’re correct they’re probably not *that* much different.
The use of leverage makes any investment riskier. Leverage amplifies gains/losses on equity.