Single Family Homes (SFH)
The average price for a SFH dropped approx $10k from last month to $441,217 but is up over $28k from January of last year.
Likewise, the median is also down month-over-month to $398,000 (-$3k) but is over $23k higher than the median recorded in January 2009.
There were a total of 762 sales in January. Going back to at least 2002, this is the first time January sales were lower than the previous month.
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Inventory has rebounded from its December lows to reach a January month-end of 2513. Even with a jump over nearly 500 in inventory, it’s still below last January’s level where inventory was at 4040.
Condos
The average price for a Condo dropped $6k from last month to $282,639, but like SFH’s, prices are up year-over-year (Jan 2009: $270,940)
There was no change in the median price, remaining at $265,000 – $22k higher than last January.
There were a total of 376 sales in January, which unlike SFH’s, is an increase over last month. (Dec 2009: 341, Jan 2009: 225)
Inventory climbed almost 200 units from December to a month-end inventory of 1397. Last January, inventory was at 1923.
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The Real Estate Council of Alberta has suspended the licences of the following brokerages: 1386982 Alberta Inc. o/a Re/Max City View, a real estate brokerage, and 1410687 Alberta Inc. o/a Dominion Lending Centres – Financial Wellness, a mortgage brokerage.
As a result of these suspensions, the brokerages cannot trade in real estate or deal in mortgages in Alberta at this time.
If you currently have trust funds being held by Re/Max City View or Dominion Lending Centres, or have transactions or deals pending with either of these brokerages, you may wish to contact the industry member with whom you were working for more information. (RECA, January 27, 2010)
Thanks Mike.
I am just wondering why there is a surge at the end of the month, esp., last Friday there were 77 sold listing.
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Mike Fotiou says: Browsing through the daily stats in 2009, there always seems to be an uptick of sales activity on Fridays and on the last business day of the month.
SFH rental inventory continues to decline at a rapid pace. Down about 20% from Nov/Dec levels.
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Mike Fotiou says: And SFH month-end resale inventory increased 22% between Dec & Jan.
I just discovered Scribd. Now you can get your CREB reports here as soon as they’re released.
IMO what we are seeing is the repercussions of “move forward demand” brought about by slamming the prime rate (and thus mortgage rates) down early last year. I predict sluggish sales and inventory (SFH and Condo) passing the 7000 mark by May.
Monthly and yearly prices are yo-yoing up and down it would make anyone’s hart who owns RE beat erratically.
CM – “SFH rental inventory continues to decline” “Mike Fotiou says: And SFH month-end resale inventory increased 22%”
A theory I proposed early last year was people were not putting their homes up for sale because they were in a hold pattern and renting them out in hopes the market $ would boom again.
Reluctant landlords. They don’t want to rent but feel they must or lose.
SFH +$28k from January of last year. I don’t think this will last long due to increasing supply and slowing sales demand. A gain or loss in RE is virtual cash anyways unless you are selling or buying, then it’s serious.
2010 tip of the year: DO NOT follow the market down if you are selling with your price, lead the market down, sell before everyone else sells before you and sit and wait a year or two with your cash.
Mike
Surprise with the stats from Jan. I am betting this year will be flat in sales . Will be interesting to see where it goes in the Spring and Fall.
On rentals I agree things have changed a bit , lots for rent and plenty of choice. We have notice lots of houses that were for rent are now listed for sale as well. The place we currently rent has had a ton looking at it but no takers . The landlord is in a bind as he can not afford the mortgage without renters and wants out! He can’t lower the price as he would loose.
I had a question – I am looking at http://www.creb.com – they posted 110 new listings for today. That is huge.
But inventory did not go up a lot. I thought that for each day:
change in inventory = new listings – sold items
But is doesnt seem to be working – is that because people tend to remove items form market and put them back ?
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Mike Fotiou: You also have to take into account pending sales (which don’t count under “Active” listings), expiries, withdrawn and terminated listings.
It would really be best if we could get seasonally adjusted stats and compare to those.
I’ve built a spreadsheet that takes into account the last few year “average” changes for inventory etc. on a month-month basis.
Dec-Jan we “should” have expected:
Increase in Inventory 8.9%
Increase in Listings 144%
Increase in Sales 19.7%
Increase in Price 2.7%
Decrease in Sales:New Listings 48% (absolute)
Almost all this data was “worse” in Jan 2010 than you would expect. The only exception was days on market which dropped more than expected
For February we should expect:
Increase in inventory 12.4%
Increase in Listings 1%
Increase in Sales 30%
Increase in Price 3-4%
Increase in Sales:New listings 13.5%
Nov-Dec usually has a 30.67% drop in inventory, so we actually started building up inventory then. Inventory on Dec 31 “should” have been about 1840. Ab rate also increased more than expected but is coming back down now.
Last year around March we had a massive gain in seasonally adjusted sales and that started to drop off a bit in December as well.
Once you adjust for seasonality and look back a few years, you can see that sales:new listings and change in absorption rates are the most reliable leading indicators. Absolute inventory seems to overwhelm these factors when it’s less than 3000 though.
If we follow Jan-Feb patterns (expecting a 12.35% increase in inventory), I would expect an inventory of 2823 at the end of this month.
Of course the data I have only goes back to 2005 so you have a mix of boom and 1 bust year in the data. It’s probably not totally representative but at least it beats getting fooled by seasonal effects.
Do you know if there is any official source of seasonally adjusted data Mike F? Also if you have good data going back further than 2005 I could fix some of the adjusting factors I am using.
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Mike Fotiou says: Jimmy, send me an email and I’ll send you data going a little further back.
Ok we are moving Yahoo, I can’t believe it but the place we rent has sold ( guess the market is hot LOL). So we are happy and so is the landlord as we both get out!
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Mike Fotiou says: Glad to hear it worked out for everyone!
Metro-Calgary Sales comparison by year for the first week of February.
SFH Sales Feb 1-7
2003: 244
2004: 229
2005: 301
2006: 444
2007: 489
2008: 280
2009: 183
2010: 251
Condo Sales Feb 1-7
2003: 75
2004: 85
2005: 114
2006: 188
2007: 231
2008: 126
2009: 80
2010: 128
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In other news, Ottawa, unlike the Big 6 banks, isn’t concerned about the possibility of a housing bubble.
Read the following Globe & Mail reports:
Ottawa says housing bubble not a concern
Banks urge Ottawa to tighten mortgage rules
Globe & Mail: MLS Challenge could change the way houses are sold.
Last time I checked, 2 of my flat-fee listings were on MLS® and are now conditionally sold. Excluded were options such Open Houses, newspaper advertising, TV ads, video tours, printed brochures, etc.
Hi Mike,
I saw there was a recent sale for $5.3M. Can you give us some more specifics about this, as in where it was? Also would this be the 3rd highest sale ever?
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Mike Fotiou says: The property was in Elbow Park. You can view pictures on the agents page here. It looks like it’s the 3rd highest MLS sale in Metro-Calgary. (The other two were in Crescent Heights and Elbow Park).
Mike, could you send me the stat. about the sold properties vs. each community for this year only? thanks.
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Mike Fotiou says: Here’s the community stats for January’s SFH and Condo sales
Great thanks, got it.
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Mike Fotiou says: Here’s the community stats for January’s SFH and Condo sales
Housing bubble talk.
Sure is A LOT of media and news stories hitting Canada, the UK and USA about Canada’s growing RE bubble, seems people here in Europe are talking about Canada’s RE to be the next Spain RE bust. Canadian banks are begging the CDN Gov’t to do something about raising borrowers loan requirements, raising interest rates or bring in a 10/30 mortgage. None of which are good for continued RE price gains.
Yesterday even the Washington Post ran a story on it as well.
There is a lot of growing momentum of a crash coming shortly here. But like buying any item, there is a right time to buy and due dilligence is always required when speculating on an asset.
Mike
luke – “I saw there was a recent sale for $5.3M.”
That sure isn’t that nice of a house for $5.3m. I thought it would be much better..ie. 150′ of waterfront or 6000sq/ft or a massive 1 acre lot. It’s not even in Mount Royal.
Sure it’s a nice $3 million dollar house, but not a $5m house IMO. You could by much nicer in even in Vancouver or Toronto for the money.
Mike