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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.
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: G4 n- ?/ k; v6 k4 n2 kA 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. z; R9 H! }1 R) o# ^
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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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7 c- [4 L9 S+ ~; ZAs of the end of Wednesday, there were 11,184 homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, according to the Realtors’ Association of Edmonton.
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9 v+ R* T2 P% r9 D+ l* [- lBut Alberta’s two biggest cities still boast some of the most expensive real estate in the country, it noted. : O% B% a; u' z
7 e& K/ l- Y1 z1 C! `“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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+ p9 t8 b2 N1 iThe 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. / a _* Q! f0 h- p2 [4 J
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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. ! `% P, y7 v! H1 D0 K/ r, k
* p6 p& C, q8 x0 q2 YAn average condominium in Edmonton was priced at $226,000, down 14.2 per cent from $263,333 in the comparable 2007 period.
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“A surge in inventory caused Alberta’s white-hot market to record the country’s only major-market price decreases,” the report said.
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4 X6 z1 h# M+ J! L( k) j5 JAcross most of the country, average house prices rose, but more slowly than the spikes seen in 2006 and 2007. : D+ i. V# R1 t, n' ]# M* D8 W
& w5 }7 q* ` H/ j. ERoyal 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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8 r5 Y; s% {" ]2 R. a6 cThe 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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