Weekly Market Update, December 1/17

Why the benchmark price is not used in Edmonton? Even the real estate board don't use it.
In calgary they use it along with the average and median.
It has to be used at least monthly.
Or an alternative would be to remove some properties from the calculation so better data is presented.

Regardless, my prediction for the next couple of years is prices will correct eventually as interest rates keep going up so it might take up till the end of next year to show in the stats.
The stress test might not have a big impact because there are always ways around and loopholes like everything else.
The best case scenario would be stagnation in prices.

Two bad news, economy slow down, Brad Lamb downtown skyscraper crocked .

I'm more optimistic. Oil is just beginning to recover.

I'd say the correction will be 10% to 15%.

My prediction- the bottom was already in for SFH. There will be further pain in the $700,000 and up range, but everything below $600,00 is going to stay steady, and overall we may even eek out an inflationary 1-2% gain. Energy spending is slowing coming back, but in particular so are the jobs. This will put a floor under house prices.

As for condos, they have another 10% to go on average, but the range on individual products will be 0-35% down.

Agreed. Most SFH will increase somewhat, but condos are dead for the next few years.

@Tom, why do people keep talking about Oil as if that will solve all real-estate issues. Oil has been significantly down for the past few years, yet the impact on the housing market was quite minimal in Edmonton.

One could argue that was mainly due to the new NDP's government hiring 20,000 new government employees.

Still.. we live in one of if not THE most indebted G7 nations. As a society we have over-gorged ourselves on debt, and there is only one direction things can go. People are not making more money in Edmonton, arguably wages are being pressured in the other direction.

I am a personally a CEO of a local business in Edmonton. Thankfully I can attest to the fact that things look very positive for 2018. Our Oil&Gas service related verticals are coming back from the dead, and speaking for my business I have not had a reason to be this positive in several years.

Yet I know many people in the building trades that are still struggling, still poised to make less... The economy is coming back to Alberta, but it will not look the same way it once did. As a result I do think housing is going to suffer.

Mind you I do not think we will see any extreme correction... 15-20% over the next 2 years is what I would expect....

It would be nice to see stats per every 100k range for 5-6 weeks... those can drive some assumptions.... US is raising interest rate next wee again and they predict 3 more in 2018.... Bond market will raise also regardless of the BoC policy... I'm curious how many will qualify for 700k - 1.2M range... In the spring somebody with 175k-200k income would be able to buy a $1-1.2M... Starting Jan 1st, same person would qualify for 27-30% less for example... Condos will not go a lot down as some people buying houses today will buy condos when they can't qualify for more....

There might be a few more part time jobs or some project work around, but wages are still in the toilet. I don't see them creeping up or anything, just worse and worse.

The problem is blue chip companies don't hire anymore. They contract the work out and the lowest bidder wins the project and shit runs down hill.

I made $65 an hour 20 years ago... now I make $25

Exactly as I predicted. They didn't lower the interest rate today

Why would they lower interest rate? If anything they should raise it!

Cat, why are you so bitter? There are many high tech companies moving to Edmonton; you might not know but several of big companies are investing here. High tech I mean branches of Google and alike...

The money isn't there anymore in wages, go look for work and you'll find out first hand.

@bubu:

I wouldn't worry about that. Almost every house in Vancouver and Toronto is over $1M and their incomes are lower than us. There will be more complaints in those two cities. The policy won't stop cash offers from immigrants and will only punish the locals. Guess who has the vote? The only way out is that BoC will lower the posted 5-year fixed to make things work, or they will have to retract the new policy.

@wsn, agree.. if nothing is changing I don't see good things.... Toronto and Vancouver are driven by emigrants but not Edmonton or Calgary... People move here for jobs to bring money...