October Edmonton Real Estate Update

October is another banner month for sales. We had the 2nd best October ever (beat only by the hot market of October 2006). The listing inventory is down as well to 5530 (from 6032 in Sept). The price point that makes up $300,000 or less is still hovering around 50% of the market (48% under $300,000 in October). 20% of the market is over $400,000, again consistent with most of the year. Despite the fact there are plenty of multiple offers floating around, the prices did slip (down 2.2% for Single Family and down 3.2% for condos) which is seasonal.

September Edmonton Real Estate Prices

Well September was the 3rd best September on record for units sold. The prices are definitely reflecting the market's turnaround. This graph shows the price for a single family dwelling from March of 2007 onward.

August 2009 Edmonton real estate price ranges

Here are those charts. As you can see the price ranges that are expanding are under $300,000 and over $400,000. I would attribute this expansion under $300,000 to the continued influx of first time buyers into the market. The over $400,000 range is probably attributed to better feelings about the economy and more move up buyers.

Edmonton Real Estate Market August 2009

Well it looks like we are back to a balanced market. No record breaking sales this month. The number of sales for August are back to a more normal range (1673). Prices actually have flattened and dipped a little. The inventory is continuing to fall which is good news. We are now at 6445 homes for sale (down from 6592 in July). One thing that is interesting is the over $400,000 price segment has went up in the last month (from 19% to 22%) but the under $300,00 is also increasing (up from 47% to 48%). So, therefore the middle $300,000-$400,000 range is actually shrinking a bit. I will post these charts in the next post.
What this all means (in my opinion) is that the market is balancing out. The predictions that we were going to shoot through the roof with prices earlier in the year have not been realized. The prices have stopped their freefall and climbed a little, but it looks like we are now moving into a stable balanced market.

July 2009 Edmonton Single Family Detached Average Price

I've put together a graph showing the average price for Single Family Detached homes. Our prices have moved back up to mid 2008 numbers. Way off from the 2007 peak, but we are moving in the right direction.

Edmonton Real Estate July 2009 Market Stats

July has been similar to June, very strong and recordbreaking. 2277 sales in the month of July, beating July of 2006 (1953 solds) by a wide margin. On the listing supply side we are now sitting at 6592 properties for sale which is down from June's 6785. What have prices done during this strong market? Not too much. We have seen an increase for Single Family dwellings to $369,859 which is just under 1% increase from June 2009. The overall average price (including condos and duplexes) actually dropped one percent to $324,847.

What does this all mean? Well the market is definitely trying to find itself. The demand is very strong, but the listing inventory has been keeping up with the demand. The resulting situation is becoming more of a balanced market in my opinion. I don't thing the sales will be recordbreaking as we go into the fall (I have been wrong before), so I actually forsee a situation where our inventory climbs a little. Not a dramatic increase, but enough to stall any further price increases. We did have the one month of 5% price increase this year, but the rest of the months are up 1% or down 1%. Overall we will probably see an average price increase of 7% total for the whole year of 2009.

This is good, not great. It reminds me of the 1996 market in Edmonton. In 1996, we had a tremendous influx of Armed Forces personnel moving into Edmonton from other Bases. This increase in demand did not effect prices dramatically (prices went up 4% for the year), but what it did do was "sop up" the excess listing inventory we had from the 1993-1995 recession/cutbacks that were going on in the City when Premier Klein came to power. Basically, the increase in buyers helped cure the supply problem, stopped the freefall in prices, and we went on our merry way of price increases in the 5-10% range in the following years. I see a similar situation here. We don't have military moving in, but we do have first time buyers, renters and relocations coming into the market. These people were frozen out of the market for the last few years because of the higher interest rates and the higher prices.

Edmonton real estate market stats for June 2009

Well as we expected, June was a record breaking month for sales. Over 2400 sales this month, more sales than May (2161 sales). The other big story is how many listings are out there. Our inventory has dropped down to the 6500 range. That is much lower than last June (2008) when we had 10,817 homes for sale. Prices for both condos and single family both went up just under 1% for the month. Not as high of an increase as May (4% increase). This could be something to watch. The high sales volume units wise is not translating into a manic price increase (like 2006). In fact the percentage of the total sales are very similar to January 2009 numbers. We have been hovering around 50% of the market in that $300,000 or less price point. So the market has been very strong, but the prices have not gone crazy. A 5% increase in two months is still very substantial. I've attached some graphs that might be of interest. Happy Canada Day everyone!