Calgary Homes For Sale Have Sales Drop

Calgary homes for sale have sales drop consecutively for fifth straight month in 2015. CREB statistics show that Calgary home supply may be coming to a crawl in response to the slowdown. New listings were around three thousand last month which is an eighteen percent drop from  2014. All data provided is from the Calgary Real Estate Board.

Ann-Marie Lurie, chief economist with CREB states “While conditions continue to favor the buyer, both the months of supply and the sales to new listings ratio, which represent measures of market balance, tightened in April. If this trend continues, it should help prevent resale inventories from rising to previous highs and limit some of the downward price pressures we’ve been seeing.”

Ann-Marie Lurie, CREB Chief Economist

The Calgary Real Estate Board said its average price for a detached home dropped to $510,200 in April, which is a zero point seven percent drop from April. Calgary homes for sale prices were still up one point four  percent from 2014 in the detached homes category.

Ann-Marie Lurie, chief economist with CREB also stated that some parts of the detached homes market are under high strain. She stated “Higher priced properties in the detached sector saw a noticeable decline in absorption levels city-wide, indicating there is less demand relative to supply levels. This does not come as a surprise as many of the job losses in recent months have occurred in the higher paying sectors.” Job losses have been great as you can see from the articles "TransAlta vows to grow while cutting coal plants, 164 jobs" and "Review of City of Calgary job vacancies, capital projects save millions." TransAlta is a Calgary based company with coal fired plants. In regards to the City of Calgary reviewing job vacancies, officials state the city is saving $6.4 million having those jobs unfilled. Also worth mentioning are the wage freezes for City of Calgary employees.

Calgary homes for sale had just 1,957 units sold in April which is a twenty two percent drop from 2014 and a fifteen percent drop averaged for the month.

Corinne Lyall, CREB President had this to say “With fewer buyers making purchase decisions and improved selections for resale, new homes and rental properties, sellers have been either adjusting their expectations on price or delaying their plans about when to list their home”

Corinne Lyall, CREB President

So we have Calgary homes for sale with a drop in sales. What does this mean? Well the drop in new Calgary home listings prevented strong increases in overall availability of homes. Also this helps to increase absorption rates in the market.

In the Calgary condos for sale sector, new condo sales dropped 61% this year which is due in part to the Calgary Oil Crisis of 2015. Altus Group Limited, Independent Real Estate Intelligence company shared that Calgary condo sales had 523 real estate transactions in the first three months of 2015, which is also fifty three percent lower than the average of the past five years. All is not doom and gloom as sales remain higher than the 2008-2010 period.

Ian Meredith, Calgary residential advisory consultant with Altus Group Limited states “Consumer confidence took a beating over Q1 as the impact of the oil prices downturn sunk into the market mentality. The drop in absorption resulted from a combination of the investor segment disappearing, owner-occupiers without a need to buy opting to stay on the fence, and the increased MLS inventory eroding the competitive position of the new condo market.”

Ian Meredith, Calgary Residential Advisory Consultant with Altus Group Limited