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EDMONTON – By the end of the year, Edmonton could get something it hasn’t seen for several years — a “normalized” housing market — as homes for sale dry up and prices drop .
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That’s the forecast contained in the House Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast released Thursday by Royal LePage Real Estate Services. + I3 n0 d- H' v( y% l0 i6 Y6 j
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A soaring number of homes put on the market especially by builders and speculators in the last year softened the city’s housing market during the second quarter, the report said. & j7 ~" ?( \3 G$ M1 s8 Z6 N
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“The high inventory levels will dwindle into the second half of the year, and as affordability improves, subsequent market conditions will continue to normalize,” the report said.
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As of the end of Wednesday, there were 11,184 homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, according to the Realtors’ Association of Edmonton. : C6 l, |2 M2 M$ P4 B
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But Alberta’s two biggest cities still boast some of the most expensive real estate in the country, it noted.
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% J, L+ z* y5 ^1 {5 P7 y x8 ]2 ?& U) {“Despite some mild price erosion during the second quarter in both Calgary and Edmonton, these markets remain strong. Although prices have come down from where they were last year — one of the best years on record — current house prices are far higher than they were three years ago before energy-rich Alberta experienced its boom.”
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The average price for a detached bungalow in Edmonton in April, May and June was $320,000, down about 14.5 per cent from the same period in 2007 ($374,143), Royal LePage said in its survey of Canadian house prices.
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8 k/ J7 s" @# e% C/ ?9 H+ _In the second quarter of 2008, a two-storey house in Edmonton sold for an average price of $348,571, down 12.4 per cent year-over-year from $397,857.
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An average condominium in Edmonton was priced at $226,000, down 14.2 per cent from $263,333 in the comparable 2007 period. / z6 a1 ?( R% g! ~/ e! T
7 R6 t) \5 g& f) F9 g' D1 l“A surge in inventory caused Alberta’s white-hot market to record the country’s only major-market price decreases,” the report said. ) M: d% L8 d* J% |/ n/ \
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Across most of the country, average house prices rose, but more slowly than the spikes seen in 2006 and 2007. . ~( d0 F# K4 z# }4 ~4 C1 m% i
, [5 g: H, j5 f) [, [( }Royal LePage forecasts the national average house price to rise by 3.5 per cent, to $318,000 by year’s end.
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The report predicts home sale transactions to decrease by 11.5 per cent to 461,000 unit sales by year’s end. |
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