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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 . 7 F$ u6 ^5 H+ {
8 J8 c h G9 l. rThat’s the forecast contained in the House Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast released Thursday by Royal LePage Real Estate Services.
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% h+ J. e( S' E! o0 yA 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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* S! S( h8 l' Q" u0 p9 [1 X% x3 }“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. 3 Q: }# U1 a6 X9 U# r3 L6 K( p
[$ Y6 a/ ]+ OAs 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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But Alberta’s two biggest cities still boast some of the most expensive real estate in the country, it noted. ( U4 l2 D4 m3 O
! C4 b* o8 Y3 X/ j8 }, K“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.” - c9 k. @. S' c0 N( k. B
+ _/ p1 k1 e- D! {- PThe 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. ' [! w) n# F% V8 L8 ~
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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.
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2 p- K( ?& F+ K2 b/ |' ?% `0 O9 eAn average condominium in Edmonton was priced at $226,000, down 14.2 per cent from $263,333 in the comparable 2007 period. " q% T6 z6 D7 x' d$ u7 h
( Q3 z5 e4 a8 b3 { n! q“A surge in inventory caused Alberta’s white-hot market to record the country’s only major-market price decreases,” the report said. ( y4 @0 Q7 b. f H4 r
" {0 U7 |" X7 b( \; L6 U2 iAcross most of the country, average house prices rose, but more slowly than the spikes seen in 2006 and 2007. 8 i7 {( g3 c) E. v
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Royal 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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