Weekly Market Update, Mar. 15/19

The average resale townhouse is about $700,000 in Victoria, 5 to 6 times what it costs in Edmonton. Vancouver resale townhouses are about 10 times what a resale Edmonton townhouses costs.

Sales are really bad... if they are staying at this level with this nice weather we can start seeing the prices under $400k for SFH and under $200k for condos... One of the issues in the next years is the capital moving to BC due to lower prices there... Skinny houses in Edmonton are at the same price or even higher that a nice condo in Vancouver today.... If a townhouse in Vancouver will be the same price as a skinny in Edmonton there is no brainer where you should invest...

Ok Tony so what I understand from your comment is that townhouse prices in Edmonton seem relatively way cheaper and should go up in price. Well let me tell you I don't agree with you on that. I see the opposite in Vancouver should happen i.e. the prices over there should drop substantially to go back down to reality and sanity .

Why do people try and compare the prices in BC to Edmonton? They are such different economies, city's demographics, etc. It adds no value to your argument of whether you think prices here are expensive or cheap.

Right Tony but I would always buy a townhouse in Victoria instead of a skinny in Edmonton for the same price...

Because Alberta's employment rate sucks

https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/Unemployment

That is a very interesting chart. Did you notice at the bottom, sales volume year to date is down 48.6% from last year!?!?! That's massive. I just had a look at the Edmonton numbers and our sales volume is down 18% year to date. This is something to keep an eye on, thanks Tara.

The federal budget is great for the SFD market. The government will give first time homeowners 10% of the cost of the house in exchange for equity when they sell.

This is a neat chart. It definitely highlights the seasonal trends in real estate:

https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/RealEstateSales

Won’t this torpedo the spring market in AB as first time home buyers sit on the sidelines waiting for this equity sharing program to start in September...then prices fall...then no one wants to buy...

Still employed, that's a possibility but also another possibility is that speculators will rush in meanwhile to buy before the program starts and props up the prices but to what extent in Edmonton and Calgary it's not clear because basically right now it's not a speculators market here in Alberta. Regardless when it starts prices will go up in Edmonton and Calgary .

10 percent new and 5 percent resale. Of course if you have a strong dislike for money you buy new instead of resale. Then when you sell the government swallows the 5 or 10 percent loss because you always sell for a loss in Edmonton.

When you die the government takes their cut if and a big if in Edmonton there actually is a profit upon sale.

The federal government is spending taxpayer dollars to help first time homebuyers alleviate the problem the federal government created in the first place, by initiating the 2% stress test. They are so smart!
A little pessimistic there Tony, or do you think home prices will just go down forever lol.

What if they don't sell?

They may buy in anticipation of the September rise in prices, but they certainly won't be paying up for anything. They'll still be going around offering ridiculous lowball offers. Eventually some desperate selling will give in.

Such a stupid thing to do. Promise free money to homebuyers, but tell them they won't get it until September. Of course everybody will wait until September to buy now. And the sellers know it too. So if they have to sell now they're screwed.

All the government had to do is put the stress test back to what it was and allow 30 year mortgages like they did before. But when has a government ever done anything sensible that didn't end up costing way more than what was there originally? (ie. pipeline)