Another day, another hit to those looking to enter Calgary’s real estate market.
Prices are expected to soar once again in the city at the end of 2024, according to an updated forecast by Royal LePage. It comes after the aggregate price of a Calgary home hiked by 9.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2024.
The aggregate home price in Calgary is expected to jump by 8 per cent between September and December of this year, which is just short of the national 9 per cent expected in Canada around the same time.
The city’s aggregate home price was over $676,000 in the first quarter of 2024 — the highest Q1 increase seen in all major Canadian markets.
Corine Lyall, owner and broker of Royal Lepage Benchmark, says it’s all being driven by a shortage of inventory, and it’s not just a trend in the City of Calgary.
“Any of our bedroom communities, Airdrie, Cochrane, Chestermere, Strathmore, Okotoks, they are all experiencing the same thing,” she says.
“Low inventory market and buyers that are interested in moving, but they’re competing with as many as 20 or 30 other people for the same property.”
While many people looking to get into the real estate market are still being pushed to the sidelines, Lyall says the city will see some inventory relief come 2026, when most mortgages have been renewed and have forced overleveraged homeowners to downsize and list their homes.
“The builders are trying to catch up, and definitely our new housing starts have increase this year, which is good,” Lyall says. “It’s still maybe not enough to give people an opportunity to buy something.”
Even though property values dropped across the country last year, Calgary bucked the trend, seeing record price increases instead.
The surge led market analysts to believe that Calgary would once again lead the country in price increases this year, but that forecast has since changed with the Greater Toronto Area and Montreal expected to outpace Alberta’s largest city when it comes to home price appreciation.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
MONTREAL – The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says Montreal-area home sales rose 9.3 per cent in August compared with the same month last year, with levels slightly higher than the historical average for this time of year.
The association says home sales in the region totalled 2,991 for the month, up from 2,737 in August 2023.
The median price for all housing types was up year-over-year, led by a six per cent increase for the price of a plex at $763,000 last month.
The median price for a single-family home rose 5.2 per cent to $590,000 and the median price for a condominium rose 4.4 per cent to $407,100.
QPAREB market analysis director Charles Brant says the strength of the Montreal resale market contrasts with declines in many other Canadian cities struggling with higher levels of household debt, lower savings and diminishing purchasing power.
Active listings for August jumped 18 per cent compared with a year earlier to 17,200, while new listings rose 1.7 per cent to 4,840.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
