Weekly Market Update Apr. 2/21

Prices inching up due to the lowest ends of the single detached and lowest ends of the condo markets being slightly bid upwards.

Wow!!! Anecdotally, I've heard of bidding wars in mature neighbourhoods closer to downtown where people are bidding $50,000 to $70,000 over, with no conditions. Nicely renovated bungalows are white hot in these neighbourhoods.

I suspect we'll start seeing price growth catching up to southern Ontario this year and next with the Bank of Canada saying they won't raise rates until 2023 at the earliest. I suspect it won't be until 2024 or 2025.

I'd love to see similar type charts of Calgary to compare how we're doing in Edmonton.

According to ZOLO, Calgary average SFH price has gone from 520,000 in January to 590,000 currently.
Median has gone from $460,000 in January to 520,000 currently.

Thanks GM. I didn't know we were still trailing Calgary by so much, considering how Calgary is still experiencing so many oil layoffs due to consolidation in O&G, while Edmonton has been relatively stable in terms of maintaining government jobs.

Tom,

Calgary is now going to be considered a high tech hub. You remember, last time you you said we don't need Infosys. They are going to be bringing 400 jobs right away and eventually 4, 000 high paying jobs. Hopefully, some large multinational tech companies decide to come here. Anytime, if the tech sector booms, real estate will follow.

Tom,

Who told you that having bidding wars near downtown, $50k-$70k. I spoke with a couple of realtors and that is not what they are telling me. Where are you getting that information or your blowing hot air to get us excited.

Hey Alex,

Good question! I would actually be more worried if listings weren't coming on. The ratio of listings to sales is quite good, right where it should be for this time of year. As exciting as price wars are from the outside, they're not actually a good thing. Buyers have to make quick decisions, sometimes without due diligence in order to "win" a bidding war. The inventory is really what matters, and we'll see where it sits when the REALTORS Association releases their monthly report next week, I expect it will be normal or slightly below normal. The net gain this week was only 13 listings, so a lot of those "new listings" are really "re-listings."

Isn’t the gap between sales and listings worrisome to you? Looks like the sellers are pouring homes in the market at a higher rate that can be absorbed by the buyers (compared it to January for example). I don’t see how we can have price wars in such an environment.

I recently saw an ad for the condos in the tower Katz built offering all kinds of incentives and discounts for anyone stupid enough to buy one.
Who would want to buy an overpriced condo in the "Ice District" with all the drug addicts sleeping on the sidewalk right outside the building?

Apologies if I missed some announcement but why are the updates coming up 1 week later than they used to? April 2nd update just came out on April 9th.
Thanks.

Please ignore the previous question. Apparently I was not paying attention to dates before :).

Looks like the old stress test is coming back for uninsured mortgages that is homes priced over a million dollars. About one third of all homes in Canada are priced above a million dollars. Set to take affect June 1st. As well showings are down to a crawl as the 5 year mortgage rate has risen. If you own a house in the cities where every house including townhouses are all over the one million dollar mark this is where you'll get at least hundreds of thousands of dollars over list. The rush will be on to close before the June 1st deadline. We may see overbids in the range of 25 to 50 percent range as the June 1st deadline nears.

The new stress test can't be good news for Edmonton. The last time a stress test was brought in Canada wide the bottom fell out of the Edmonton market. We'll see what happens after June the 1st.