Edmonton Real Estate update October 22, 2010

This week the market has continued to improve. As of yesterday we have sold 727 homes this month. Based on that pace, the projected month end number of sales would be 1073. This is far higher than the pace we are on in the first week of October (projecting only 943 sales).

The number of new listings coming on the market have slowed considerably as well. We've listed 1,670 homes so far this month, at that pace the projected month end number of new listings would be 2465 (vs 2800 projection based on the first week of October's pace).

Inventory is slowly coming down. We now have 7970 homes for sale versus 8035 last week. I did another search to see how many homes are failing to sell and coming off the market for the last few months.
August: 1791 homes failed to sell
September: 1777 homes failed to sell
October (up to 22nd): 787 homes failed to sell
October's numbers will rise much higher than the 787, as there are normally many homes that come off the market close to the end of the month.

So, overall the market is improving. We certainly aren't booming, but the inventory should start dropping this month. I predict we will see an inventory level in the 7000 range in the first week of November. Have a great weekend, and enjoy our unusually warm temperatures!

Edmonton Real Estate Update Mid October 2010

Well things are getting a bit better. The sales pace is picking up a little bit. Last week we were on pace to sell only 943 homes, now we are on pace to sell 1000 (there were 452 sales in the last 14 days in the Metro Edmonton area). Another positive development is that the new listings pace has slowed. We were on pace last week to list 2800 homes this month, this week we are on pace to only list 2480 (1120 listings in the last 14 days). This is still a high number of new listings, but hopefully the slowdown continues. There are 8035 properties for sale as of October 14, 2010. 60% of this inventory is single family, 30% are condos, and the balance is made up of duplexes and other (mobiles, rowhouses etc).
I have noticed more offers coming in on my listings in the past 7 days, and it definitely "feels" busier out there. Have a great weekend!

October 7th 2010 Edmonton Real Estate update

As of yesterday, we have listed 635 homes in the Metro Edmonton area so far in October. That puts us on pace to list over 2800 this month. The high new listing pace of August and September looks to be continuing into October.
As for sales, we have sold 213 homes in the Metro Edmonton area. That puts us on pace to sell 943 this month. Traditionally we sell 1200+ in October. So, sales continue to be lower than the last few years' average.
Have a great Thanksgiving! Living in this country, we all have much to be grateful for.

September 2010 Edmonton Real Estate Market Update

Well September wasn't much different then August. We saw 1187 sales in September (1285 in August) and there were 2668 new listings in September (2708 in August). So the supply continues to outpace the demand. Our listing inventory actually did fall in September from 8822 to 8607 properties for sale. That certainly wasn't due to sales, it was due to sellers taking their homes off the market. I hear a lot of people saying that they will take their home off now, and then put it back on in the spring of 2011. The only problem with this theory, is that was what everybody did in the fall/winter of 2007. Our inventory built up in the spring of 2008 to a peak of 11,006 homes for sale. It is hard to predict what is going to happen at any time, but I'm pretty confident that prices will continue to soften this fall due to higher inventory levels. I have to temper this with the increased job prospects and increased immigration into Alberta that was recently announced. These are both very positive developments. So, this increased inventory should be reduced in the coming months and strengthen home prices in the long term.

How about prices? September saw single family detached homes staying stable at $370,654 versus $370,181 in August. Condos were up a little from $236684 in August to $238822 in September. If you look at the price per square foot graph it paints a different picture. The price per square foot for single family detached in Edmonton is starting to move down, ie)you are getting more house for your money in the market.