National headlines have focused on record real estate sales recently, and the Greater Edmonton Area is no exception - we haven't seen this many sales in August since the boom in 2006. After peaking in July, single-family sales in Edmonton came back down to normal levels in August while sales outside Edmonton skyrocketed. Sales in our neighbouring cities and towns such as St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Beaumont and Spruce Grove were up 66% compared to last year which lifted the overall Edmonton CMA sales up 20%. This is a trend we're seeing across North America as many people working from home don't feel the need to be as close to their workplace, and are opting for more space further from the core. According to an internal poll, the majority of buyers in…

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The spring market clearly had a delayed peak due to COVID-19 this year. Our weekly stats have shown a downward trend for the past few weeks, so I expect that July was the peak of the real estate market in Edmonton this year. We have clients moving for all kinds of reasons at the moment, upsizing, downsizing, relocating, first time buyers, and everything in between; we're all spending a lot more time at home, and for some, our priorities and needs have shifted. I will update this post when the REALTORS@reg; Association of Edmonton releases its monthly report on the real estate market in Edmonton. "There have been improvements relative to the lowest sales levels caused by COVID-19, but it is too early to say things are shifting back to pre-pandemic…

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Pent up demand for real estate in Edmonton brought sales back up to normal levels for June. Sales rebounded, surpassing the numbers reported for the past 4 years in Edmonton and pushing us into a seller's market (just barely with 3.8 months supply) for the first time since 2015. Watch our Facebook page for a live market discussion next week.  I'll update this post in a few days when the full monthly stats are released by the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton.  

Edmonton Stats

Condo sales also rebounded in June, matching the number of sales reported in 2018 but remained below normal levels. The average sale price for single-family homes fell 1.4% from last year to $411,882 and the median price dropped 1.6% to $373,638. The…

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The Edmonton real estate market rebounded in May after COVID-19 took a serious bite out of the April market, but it's still considerably slower than we normally see at this time of year. There are plenty of buyers out looking (our website traffic is up over 40% from last May, with over 4.6million pageviews), but there were slim pickings at the beginning of May when most of the homes on the market were stale listings that had not adjusted to the new market reality; new listings started coming on the market in the last two weeks for the month, giving buyers more to choose from. Sales are down, significantly, but the inventory is also down which has moved us from a sever buyer's market last month, to a mild buyer's market in May. Different segments of the…

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We don't often see sales decline in April compared to March, and I don't think we've ever seen them drop to back down to December/January levels, but that's what COVID-19 has done to the real estate market in Edmonton. Perhaps some are surprised to see any homes sold at all; we and many in the industry were projecting sales to drop between 50-65% compared to last year, which is exactly what happened. 383 sales were reported in Edmonton in April, down 50% from last April. If you're thinking of buying or selling real estate this spring make sure you check out our "what to expect" and "COVID FAQs for real estate" blog posts from earlier this week. I will update this post when the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton releases its monthly report on the market…

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And we were off to such a good start... alas, it was not to be. The question on my, and many people's minds, is what is COVID-19 going to do to the real estate market? Obviously, the short term impact can already be seen - when the spring market is normally heating up, two weeks of physical distancing sent sales to the lowest level we've seen in March in at least 10 years. My data set goes back to 2005 (not shown in the charts below) and the lowest number of single-family homes sales I have on record was 636 in March of 2009. At the time, we were recovering from the "Great Recession" and things picked up quite a bit later in the year. Often when an external force hits the real estate market, buyers will shift their purchase forward or back, but this is…

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Once again demand for real estate is up and supply is down on a year over year basis in the greater Edmonton area. But, before we start to see home prices increase, we will need to see improvement on the employment side of things, according to Senior market analyst at CMHC Heather Bowyer: “Overall we’re seeing the Edmonton market operate below pre-recession levels,” she says. “Even looking on the labour side of the market — what really drives housing demand — we’re seeing lower employment, specifically full-time... If we see those fundamentals improve, then we can expect to see housing demand improve, but it will be a while still before we see conditions we saw during the boom periods in Edmonton.” With that said, the BoC cut rates this week, which…

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Supply is down, demand is up compared to last year - will this trend continue? If it does, we should start to see prices moving upward. A few interesting reports came out this month, first, the federal first time home buyers incentive has been declared a "flop" by Sherry Cooper, chief economist at Dominion Lending Centres. With that said, Edmonton has had the second-most applications in the country, so perhaps it's helping first time buyers overcome the stress test in our market a bit. I would think hard about sharing a chunk of my equity with feds before I applied for that program. The other interesting news is that the vacancy rate has dropped, even with tons of new rental units being built in the city; 40% of condos in Edmonton are designated as…

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Here's our initial look at the real estate market in Edmonton in December - I will update this post after the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton releases their monthly report on the market. Single-family home sales ended out the year like they normally do in December - 402 homes were reported sold in December, up 7% from last year. Condo sales were slower than normal, but similar to what we saw last year - 146 condo were reported sold in December (compared to 142 last year). The average price of single-family homes was $401,816, down 7% from last year and the median price was down 6% to $353,450. The average price of condos was $222,554, down 9% from last year and the median price was down 2% to $198,000. The average price for single-family homes…

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There was an interesting article published in the Edmonton Journal this week, discussing the rather rosy results of a report from the Real Estate Intelligence Network (REIN). “It’s in recovery — a slow recovery — that’s based on current and future GDP growth,” says Jennifer Hunt, vice-president of research at Real Estate Intelligence Network Ltd. “At REIN we are always looking at the health of the economy, jobs and migration.” All are connected, she adds. Economic growth creates jobs, which boosts migration. In turn, more people coming to the city for jobs will create more demand for housing — first rental units and then homes for ownership. The Real GDP for the City of Edmonton is up 0.5% from last year and is forecast to grow at about 1.4% next…

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