Calgary’s housing market saw 1,650 homes sold in January — a 37.7 per cent increase year over year — which the Calgary Real Estate Board calls a “significant gain” compared with long-term trends.
CREB’s latest monthly report, released Thursday, credits the growth to a rise in new listings. Over 2,100 were listed, with the largest jump in detached homes priced above $700,000.
Ann-Marie Lurie, the board’s chief economist, said activity in the higher-priced listings was expected. However, the January real estate market also saw listings grow for condos priced above $300,000.
“There was a little bit more listing growth happening in the lower end of the market, which was a bit more of a surprise as compared to last year,” she said.
Listings of all product types — detached, semi-detached, row and apartment — improved.
Lurie said that while this is typical when comparing January to December, the year-over-year gains were a notable change.
But market tightness impacted home prices yet again throughout last month.
The unadjusted benchmark price for a home hit $572,300, up 10 per cent from January 2023.
Homes listed in the west and northwest regions of the city saw the largest year-over-year price increases.
Conditions still favour the seller
But supply issues persisted — and the CREB economist says Calgary is still “absolutely” a seller’s market.
“What we’re seeing is that because the listings came on, so did the sales. So the sales really responded because there were people who were really just waiting for some supply choice,” she said.
Calgary’s low inventory remained a challenge in January that even “the rise in new listings relative to sales did little to change,” the report states.
“Inventories are still half of the levels we traditionally see in the market,” Lurie said. “Because of that, the months of supply still remain well under two months, and that’s driving further price growth.”
The Calgary Real Estate Board’s chief economist, Ann-Marie Lurie, says year-over-year growth is a key component of January’s real estate market report. (Dave Gilson/CBC)
Inventory levels for January were near 2006 level “record lows” at nearly 49 per cent below the long-term average, according to CREB’s report.
But Lurie says sales could remain strong in Calgary’s real estate market throughout the rest of 2024.
“We’ve had pretty strong sales activity despite the fact that we have had higher interest rates,” she said.
“That tells me that even if there’s some concern over some slowing economic conditions, well, that drop in rates should help continue to support stronger demand throughout the second half of the year as well.”
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
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.
