The Calgary spring Real Estate market has been good so far, and the numbers are very good especially for the new built homes. What I find puzzling however, is that the North West areas of Calgary are out-selling the South East areas of Calgary by almost 2 to 1 in the resale home sector.
Sooner or later all areas of the city will balance out in terms of overall sales, but there is no question the majority of the home sales in the South East areas of Calgary are going to new homes vs. resale. I can attribute this to two factors: folks are moving up and don’t like what they have seen in the resale market, so they purchase a new home; and frankly, new homes represent great value now when compared to many resale homes.
The resale homes that are selling quickly tend to be in good locations, well maintained, and priced right. Those that are out of the value proposition for buyers might have a wait on their hands; as the March and April resale numbers will be higher than the May numbers in terms of the number of resale homes sold. In other words, the market looks like it’s already starting to slow a bit as we come into the late spring market.
This does not mean that the Calgary market is going to slow down to the levels seen in the last few years. What it means, is that we are back to normal markets and this spring saw a large jump in sales as the interest rates went under 3% for a fixed rate. That lowering of interest rates may have brought the spring market forward by a few months so that sales that would normally occur in May actually happened in March. Either way, this year will see a 20% increase over last year in overall sales, and sales of resale homes overall are still far ahead of last year’s pace.
Doug Hayden, Real Estate Professional in Calgary
Well after a rather long hiatus in the Calgary housing market it finally looks like we are on the threshold of a long term sustainable housing market. Basically it feels like Spring has finally come to the Calgary housing market after a long winter that goes back to late 2008.
There are a few rather interesting trends developing this spring, chief among them a shortage of good listings in the starter and mid move-up market, and the high number of million dollar plus listings selling. In the past few weeks I have been involved in several competing offers on homes, but oddly enough many of those homes had been on the market for longer than 3 months.
Two things will be happening due to the current shortage of entry level homes. First we’ll see a bit of a bump up in price, but the bigger change will come from the new build market. There is a lot of excess capacity for builders to bring on new homes and as you can see with the recent announcement of 5 new large scale condo projects in the city, and both builders and developers can react quickly to market demand. So watch for a big marketing push this fall as all the home builders around the city and province gear up to increase their sales volume.
First time home buyers are more sensitive to price than they are the neighborhood where they will live, and many prefer a new home over a resale home. This means a lot of new build for the newer communities around the S.E. and the rest of the city.
Completed, or near completed communities have to rely on the resale market for first time buyers and even with the shortage of listings buyers are still using discretion, and will not move on a property unless they feel it is the right one for them. So for those that think it’s a seller’s market I would caution you that only the well priced good condition homes are selling, and once you move over the $500k mark the residential real estate market hasn’t real changed to much, other than more homes are selling this spring than last.
All in all the Calgary Real Estate market looks like back to what I would classify as normal, and that’s a good thing.
Doug Hayden, Real Estate Professional in Calgary
Market Minutes from Kim and Doug Hayden are now on location. This time at the SanRemo Restaurant in McKenzie Towne Calgary.
We will use the Hayden Team as our realtors again and refer them to anyone – we were once again pleased with their help!
