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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 .
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That’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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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. 2 V' S% R( I# G1 M
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“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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3 J) d% v1 L& b3 D$ ?, p/ ]As of the end of Wednesday, there were 11,184 homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, according to the Realtors’ Association of Edmonton. " H0 t: t/ Q; U- f
' U8 k9 @9 P4 m' U0 I2 H) cBut 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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The 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. " |7 l( b V" ]7 j1 }
# g; I! C# r b% I1 w5 jAn average condominium in Edmonton was priced at $226,000, down 14.2 per cent from $263,333 in the comparable 2007 period.
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* v9 U" n# v6 t& t& h+ ? ?“A surge in inventory caused Alberta’s white-hot market to record the country’s only major-market price decreases,” the report said. p8 u# k3 b: Y8 a8 A$ ^8 F
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Across most of the country, average house prices rose, but more slowly than the spikes seen in 2006 and 2007. 8 A$ S7 D0 a% u% S
$ ]# y) h* m+ A* o' sRoyal LePage forecasts the national average house price to rise by 3.5 per cent, to $318,000 by year’s end. + _3 S% s9 T6 @
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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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