Cooler Real Estate Prices in Edmonton Still Up From Last Year
The REALTORS® Association of Edmonton released the stats for real estate sales in July today showing that housing prices cooled in July. Single family dwelling prices slid 3.1% while condo prices were down a marginal 1.5% and the overall residential average price dropped 1.7% to $329,734 from $335k last month. The overall median sale price was almost unchanged at $313,000 compared to $315,000 last month. This suggests that lower luxury sales affected the overage average as we suspected when we reported our numbers on Monday.
"The number of homes in the inventory is giving buyers' choice," said Larry Westergard, president of the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton. "As a result many buyers are taking their time and prices are beginning to soften slightly. At the same time, some sellers who have been standing firm have been pushed to discount their initial list price."
Although inventory of homes and condos within the city limits is still creeping up, the inventory for the board as a whole dropped to 8,892 residential properties.
New listings were off 15% from last month and 3.3% from last July and are falling back into the "normal" range.
As we discussed last month, the Association has made efforts to improve the accuracy of our stats; some sales are reported after the stats are released so the Association now goes back and corrects the numbers. For example, last month when the press release came out 1539 sales were reported for June, and this month the numbers show 1741 for June. I've decided to show both the reported numbers and the adjusted numbers in my chart, with a projected number for July so we can compare apples to apples. No matter how you look at it, we saw very low sales in July:
From our perspective this inversion of sales is mainly related to a significant amount of demand moving forward in 2009 to take advantage of lower interest rates. On June 17th this year we suggested people get "ready for the headlines", where we basically outlined there would be lower sales. Some people see the current trend as a race for the bottom while I have perhaps a slightly different take. I saw one comment on our blog who compared us to Florida. I mean come on, Flordia? Not even close. Our inventory levels are not that out of line and compared to other markets our lending practises and economic fundamentals are extremely different.
Anyway, in regards to the number of homes for sale... If seasonal trends hold true to form we will see inventory soften for the rest of the year, the question is "by how much?" With the sales at these levels a drop in listings will mainly be precipatated by expired listings or people just taking their properties off of the market. I'd like to know when demand will normalize. If the inversion principle holds then September / October will see more normalized sales and then you will see headlines saying how "sales are 15% higher than last year" and so on. One thing I have certainly cautioned my sellers on is that if you do see a lower offer than you normally would have considered, I wouldn't discount it without a good hard look at the overall fundamentals.
Edmonton Real Estate Market Weekly Update – June 25, 2010
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: 467 (560, 599, 594)
# Sales: 255 (262, 271, 245)
Ratio: 55% (47%, 45%, 41%)
# Price changes: 400 (413, 421, 412)
# Expired/Off Market Listings: 170 (212, 173, 302)
Net loss/gain in listings this week: 42 (86, 155, 47)
Active listings for single family homes: 3289 (3259, 3185, 3083)
Active listings for condos: 2262 (2249, 2212, 2151)
New listings are finally slowing down, just in time for summer holidays. Inventory just might drop next week for the first time this year, as a lot of listings will likely expired on June 30.
The REALTORS® Association of Edmonton is reporting 1386 sales so far this month, which should put us around 1700 for the month (below average). The average residential sale price sits at $340k (up $1k from last week and last month), single family homes at $387k and condos at $248k (both up from last week and about the same as last month).
Have a great weekend, and a warm welcome to Edmonton for Taylor/Tyler 
Edmonton Real Estate Market Weekly Update – June 18, 2010
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: 560 (599, 594, 504)
# Sales: 262 (271, 245, 245)
Ratio: 47% (45%, 41%, 49%)
# Price changes: 413 (421, 412, 332)
# Expired/Off Market Listings: 212 (173, 302, 142)
Net loss/gain in listings this week: 86 (155, 47, 142)
Active listings for single family homes: 3259 (3185, 3083, 3045)
Active listings for condos: 2249 (2212, 2151, 2147)
The REALTORS® Association of Edmonton is reporting 992 sales so far this month, which should put us around 1700-1800 for the month (below average). The average residential sale price sits at $339k (same as last month), single family homes at $384k (same as last week and down $4k from last month) and condos at $246k (down $2k from last month).
Edmonton Real Estate Market Weekly Update – June 11, 2010
EdmontonRealEstateMarketUpdate
Here is our update on the Edmonton real estate market. (Previous week’s numbers are in brackets). For the past 7 days:
New listings: 599 (594, 504, 610)
# Sales: 271 (245,245, 303)
Ratio: 45% (41%, 49%, 50%)
# Price changes: 421 (412, 332, 396)
# Expired/Off Market Listings: 173 (302, 142, 149)
Net loss/gain in listings this week: 155 (47, 142, 158)
Active listings for single family homes: 3185 (3083, 3045, 2972)
Active listings for condos: 2212 (2151, 2147, 2108)
The REALTORS® Association of Edmonton is reporting 599 sales so far this month, which should put us around 1700-1800 for the month (below average). The average residential sale price sits at $337k (down $2k from last month), single family homes at $384k (down $4k from last month) and condos at $244k (down $4k from last month).
Edmonton residential real estate listings and sales
Inventory continues to climb, we are well above last year's levels but still well behind what we saw in 2008. We expect to see lots of expired listings by the end of this month which could bring inventory down a bit, we'll have to wait and see.
Edmonton single family home inventory
Looks like it's going to be a beautiful weekend in Edmonton, hope you enjoy it!
Edmonton Luxury home market surges
The average residential sale price of Single family homes increased significantly in Edmonton in May, 2010. This was unexpected, but don’t get too excited as averages can be very misleading. It looks like the average was thrown off by a higher number of luxury sales – there were nearly twice as many sales of high end homes in Edmonton in May than there were in April. We’ll have a closer look at the high end market next week.
Edmonton Average Residential Sale Price
The average condo sale price meanwhile remained relatively unchanged. The average price per square foot of both single family homes and condos remained relatively unchanged as well, homes increased from $269/square foot in April to $271/square foot in May, and condos remained the same at $235/square foot.
Edmonton Real Estate Price per Square Foot
As expected sales of single family homes have fallen back to 2008 levels and are certainly below average. We expect sales to follow a seasonal pattern in line with 2008 – unless something big happens we don’t see anything dramatically influencing sales.
Edmonton Single Family Home Sales
Condo sales dropped below even 2008 levels at a time of year when they are nornally on the rise:
Edmonton Condo Sales
As always this report reflects only Edmonton MLS® sales, when the numbers are released for the entire MLS® by the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton we will post our final monthly report for May.