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EDMONTON – By the end of the year, Edmonton could get something it hasn’t seen for several years — a “normalized” housing market — as homes for sale dry up and prices drop . ; `# O/ M6 b4 B6 \
0 U& R0 [& T& PThat’s the forecast contained in the House Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast released Thursday by Royal LePage Real Estate Services. 6 l, s, c G9 D3 v
+ Z( K# F0 E' X+ H& [9 \3 ~A soaring number of homes put on the market especially by builders and speculators in the last year softened the city’s housing market during the second quarter, the report said.
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# ?" l, G' E1 P1 x. s- g) l @“The high inventory levels will dwindle into the second half of the year, and as affordability improves, subsequent market conditions will continue to normalize,” the report said.
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9 P+ U/ |2 Y; r& M+ dAs of the end of Wednesday, there were 11,184 homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, according to the Realtors’ Association of Edmonton.
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& z) `; f3 a7 Z; ^' zBut Alberta’s two biggest cities still boast some of the most expensive real estate in the country, it noted.
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“Despite some mild price erosion during the second quarter in both Calgary and Edmonton, these markets remain strong. Although prices have come down from where they were last year — one of the best years on record — current house prices are far higher than they were three years ago before energy-rich Alberta experienced its boom.”
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; O2 R& ?: f/ [: L8 QThe average price for a detached bungalow in Edmonton in April, May and June was $320,000, down about 14.5 per cent from the same period in 2007 ($374,143), Royal LePage said in its survey of Canadian house prices.
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In the second quarter of 2008, a two-storey house in Edmonton sold for an average price of $348,571, down 12.4 per cent year-over-year from $397,857. r7 W/ B! M: j1 ` S) j7 ~1 o
( j+ ]. O0 t9 H) y0 CAn average condominium in Edmonton was priced at $226,000, down 14.2 per cent from $263,333 in the comparable 2007 period.
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: ^( m2 o( H$ \; T! r6 w% J6 M“A surge in inventory caused Alberta’s white-hot market to record the country’s only major-market price decreases,” the report said. 0 }8 X ~% t, M. p* w/ J* ?% F' z
% j& u! A. w' B) l- uAcross most of the country, average house prices rose, but more slowly than the spikes seen in 2006 and 2007.
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) d- A+ G: o7 NRoyal LePage forecasts the national average house price to rise by 3.5 per cent, to $318,000 by year’s end.
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The report predicts home sale transactions to decrease by 11.5 per cent to 461,000 unit sales by year’s end. |
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