Calgary market sets new records in August. But are we still affordable?

In this Calgary Real Estate Market Update we’re not only going to tell you what you probably already know – which is that Calgary continues to be a very hot seller’s market – but we’re also going to peel back the layers a little further and talk about the rental market a little bit, and we’ll also discuss what the numbers look like if you’re deciding between renting or buy this fall!

But first, we have something very special to announce. On the 23rd of September, for one day only, we will be hosting a LIVE event all about real estate investing here in Calgary. We’ll be joined by some long-time colleagues, the incredible real estate coaches Corey and Tiffany Young of Fearless Investors, as well as several other speakers in a landmark event designed to help YOU take advantage of the generational wealth-building opportunity we have in Calgary right now.  Oh, and we should mention… we are doing the event in a movie theatre!

Yes, that’s right, you can recline in your seat, grab a bag of popcorn while you learn how to invest from the best.  Tickets are selling fast so check in the comments below for a registration link and get your seat today.

Okay, so why would you want to learn about investing in real estate?  Well ,simply because the Calgary market continues to build wealth for all that own property here.  In August, we saw prices increase by about 7.4% from this time last year, with total sales up by nearly 28%. That’s really healthy growth, and about the same numbers we saw in July with about 2,600 homes changing hands.

Breaking things down a little further, Detached homes have pushed through the $700,000 barrier, with an average price of $709,000, an 11% increase from this time last year and up a cool $120K from August 2021. Wow! 

Semi-detached properties grew at about the same rate, 11%, and now sit at an average price of $580,000, which is basically the Detached price from two years ago, which is also kind of a crazy thing to behold within our market. 

But that’s not all folks! The Row townhouse market is also making huge gains – up 22% – twice the rate of growth as the free hold segments, to sit at $419,000. I’ve long felt that the Row townhouse segment was really great value here in Calgary and the word is getting out and we’re starting to see that sector catch up to attached pricing. My feeling is that it’s being driven by the activity within the Condo/Apartment segment, which is also posting double digit gains, up 15% from this time last year. 

Okay, but here’s a little bit of expert insight for you – we are seeing more new listings across all segments when compared to last year, about 7% or so, with the Apartment condo sector showing a nearly 50% jump in available properties on the market. Why, you ask? Well, this is almost definitely the result of new construction units hitting the resale market as early stage pre-construction investors exit into our current boom, pocketing some cash after renting for a year or two. 

Now, speaking about the rental market – housing affordability is one of the hottest topics in Canadian real estate, so I’m going to deliver a little bit of insight into this segment of the market for those that are wondering if they should keep renting or push to get into home ownership.

Now, before I dive in, I should note that the statistics I’m referring to here are from a private company, rentfaster.ca, and they are asking rents, so they aren’t based on actual leases. But since we also run a property management company here at Redline – check us out at greenleafpm.ca –  we look after hundreds of properties around the city and we know that the asking rents are essentially the same as leased rents and most of the trends I’ll discuss next are substantiated by our own experience within the marketplace.

So, if you wanted to rent out a property in Calgary you would be looking at approximately $2,000 for a one bedroom condo, $2,500 for a two bedroom and $3,000 for a 3-bedroom house.  If you are into suited properties, main floors were commanding just under $2,300 a month in August, and basements are fetching just over $1,600 per month.  All of these rents are up significantly compared to last year, on average about $400 more in 2023 than in 2022.

So, with both rental rates and housing prices going up, should you rent or should you buy if you are planning on moving here? Well, housing affordability is one of the hottest topics of conversation around the country these days. Interest rates have increased, making loans more expensive and prices do not appear to be coming down. So, what exactly would your payments look like if you decided to buy, and how do they stack up against the rents for the same asset class?

Well, I took a look at the contrast between the two approaches to housing, and I’ll walk you through it for the overall markets for both rental and purchase scenarios. If you’d like to see what the numbers look like for each of the market segments –  so Detached, Semi detached Row townhouse and Apartment condo – just wait till the end of this update and we’ll post those numbers.

So, with respect to interest rates, the Globe & Mail had an article recently where they showed the lowest available interest rates across various products like 3-year fixed or variable, 5-year fixed or variable and so forth. For our study I’m going to go with the 5-year variable option because I feel it’s more likely that rates will be lower five years from now, and I also really hate the payout penalties associated with fixed rate loans. Our rate for the study will be 5.25%, and we will use an amortization length of 30 years.

So, using an ‘average’ Calgary sale price for August of $525,000 we’re going to run two sets of numbers – the first one for a first time home buyer using only 5% down, and a second scenario at 25% down which would be the lowest you could use if you were investing in real estate or if you just wanted to avoid CMHC insurance premiums which are getting pretty hefty as loan prices go up more and more each year.

So, a 5% down payment on $525,000 would be $26,250, and your monthly payment would be just over $2,700.

At 20% down, you’d need $105,000 in cash and your payment would be $2,300. Both of these numbers are very close to the ‘average’ rent rate in Calgary right now, which is $2,368, so we are pretty close, but all of them are indeed quite expensive when compared to a few years ago.

But expensive is a relative term.

Calgary’s prices are still way, way cheaper than Vancouver’s or Toronto’s, each more than DOUBLE the average sale price that buyers would pay here in Cowtown, and considerably more than the average rental rates in those two cities. So, by that measure, we have it pretty good here in Calgary.

Which is why you should consider taking a bigger piece of our market and learn all about investing in Calgary at our LIVE event on September 23rd!

We will have experts there explaining how to enter the world of real estate investing, and I will be there to share the kind of money-making intel about the market that we don’t put up on YouTube! Here’s the registration link:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/fearless-real-estate-tickets-691660183227

And here, to finish things off, are the asset class specific Rent vs. Own analyses…





If you are in need of some help for your specific situation just drop us a comment, or email at inquire@redlinerealestate.ca so we can hook you up with a specialist from our group of over 90 agents in the region!

Calgary’s red hot market: How long will it last?

The market is just as HOT as the weather is right now, but the real question is: How long will this boom market last? Interest rates have increased and the issue of housing affordability has dominated the headlines recently.  

So, can we expect this trend to continue? Well, in this month’s update I am going to tell you all about how Calgary fared in July and what the outlook is for the rest of the year. And I’ll also delve into the politics behind all of the headlines, not only for Calgary, but for the Canadian landscape, as well. Okay, let’s go! 

Well, as you might have guessed, Calgary’s real estate market set some more records in July, with the most sales and highest prices we’ve ever seen… again! Those of us that do these real estate market updates can often sound like a broken record, as each month it seems we are telling the same “high prices, hot market” story. Buuuut… this month is just a little bit different, and I’m going to tell you why. 

But, first up, let’s discuss July. When you look at the whole market – averages across the four key categories tracked by the Calgary Real Estate Board – we see what we would expect, which is increased prices and sales across all segments. The ‘average’ price of an ‘average’ piece of real estate in Calgary is now $567,000, up about 6% from this time last year. Total sales are also up, with just over 2,600 properties trading hands over the course of July. 

The real story to watch isn’t about prices and sales, though. It’s about the lack of inventory. There just isn’t anywhere near as much to buy, with inventory down by almost 35% from this time last year. Inventory is so low, in fact, that the current ‘Months of Supply’ metric – or the number of months it would take to sell every house currently available for sale – is set at 1.3. So, basically, a little over five weeks of inventory, which is incredibly low. This is very much in ‘sellers market’ territory, and I don’t think that’s likely to change any time soon.

Looking at each of the specific categories tracked by the Calgary Real Estate Board, Detached prices now average $690,000 and Apartment condos are less than half of that at $306,000. Semi Detached properties come in at about $617,000 and Row townhouses are at $400,000. All of these categories are hovering around 10% higher prices now than they were this time last year.

You might think that tight markets like this are good for our industry, but they actually present quite a few challenges because with fewer listings coming to market and with all of them flying off the shelves so fast it can be very challenging to make a move from one house to another. So, what do you do if you want to make a move? Do you wait it out for an easier market to trade in? Or do you need to jump right away? Well, to make your decision it might help to take a look at what is fueling the fire for our super-hot market in Calgary and across the country. We’ve seen some headlines recently that give us a bit of a sneak peek for how things are going to go at the federal level, which should trickle down to us regular Calgary consumers.

So, let’s start with the recent cabinet shuffle of senior ministers by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He moved a few players around and, most relevant to our discussion, we now have a new housing minister in Sean Fraser. Interestingly, Fraser is leaving behind the role of Immigration minister in order to step over to Housing, two factors very much related to the issue of housing affordability.

I bring this up because, as Immigration minister, Fraser presided over the largest single inflow of immigrants Canada has ever seen, when Canada added over one million new immigrants in 2022.

In fact, Canada’s population growth of 2.7% in 2022 ranks as one of the highest in the world, and puts us in the top 20 countries for overall growth with almost all of the countries higher than us being in Africa.

So, it should be no secret that the quickest way to calm our real estate market would be to slow down immigration and allow the development industry some breathing room to catch up to the supply levels needed to stabilize price growth. After all, more people means more demand for both rental and retail housing, right? Well, you can be sure that the new housing minister isn’t going to want to make himself look bad and call for a reduction in immigration to make it easier on him in his new job and, right out of the gate, we saw this confirmation when he said that “closing the door on newcomers is no solution to the housing crunch”.

This was supported by his boss, the prime minister, who put on this nice white hardhat and vest a few days ago to tour a construction site in Ontario and echoed his new housing minister’s messaging by pledging his support to increase supply.

So, the takeaway is that the key metric underpinning housing demand – more people moving into our country – is unlikely to change. Demand will stay strong and prices will continue to increase because it’s much easier to let someone into Canada than it is to build a home for them. Check out this graph I compiled from data available on the Statistics Canada website and the Canadian Real Estate Association. It shows that recent demand for housing has increased with significantly more immigration but, given the consistent supply coming from the construction industry, it means only one thing – increased prices.

For this to change, we will need all three orders of government to agree to solutions to accommodate such high levels of immigration. I think this is a tall order, indeed, given that electoral cycles differ from one level of government to the next and governments love to push problems around to one another. Canada has never before undertaken a truly united approach to housing reform and I’m just not convinced that we’re going to see that happen now.

So, we can expect tight markets and low inventory levels to continue for as long as immigration stays elevated to the extent it has been for the last few years. 

Now, another issue affecting inventory and movement is interest rates. And we just saw another jump issued by the Bank of Canada a few weeks ago to bring the key lending rate right up to an even 5% in an attempt to slow down inflation and perhaps demand for expensive housing. But it just isn’t working, as we can see from this month’s sales statistics in Calgary. People value housing; they don’t expect prices to drop anytime soon and so they are agreeable to paying more and more money for their homes. And it makes financial sense, too – as long as prices increase at high single-digit rates, homeowner equity growth will outpace the debt Canadians take on to buy homes, which will keep the party going for years to come. 

Payments are getting higher, though. There is no doubt about that. But will interest rates keep going up? Well, one fellow who’s opinion I value is CIBC economist Benjamin Tal, who suggested that the Bank of Canada wants to see interest rates come down before the loans taken out in 2020 and 2021 mature, as over half of all mortgages held were written in those post-pandemic years when the government issued a lot of free money and banks allowed homeowners to suspend payments and re-do their mortgages in the face of pandemic uncertainty. So, if you were thinking of trading up or buying a house, perhaps consider a variable rate mortgage so that you can take advantage of decreasing rates in a few year’s time. 

Anyway, Calgary’s market is still very healthy. We currently sit at less than half the average sales prices of both Vancouver and Toronto, which gives us a competitive advantage for attracting more people and businesses to our city. I don’t think this is likely to change any time soon, either, so there’s a good bet you’ll see us again in a month’s time talking about record prices and record sales for our market. 

If you are in need of some help for your specific situation just drop us a comment, or email at inquire@redlinerealestate.ca so we can hook you up with a specialist from our group of over 90 agents in the region!

Calgary is Canada’s Real Estate Bright Spot!

The November Real Estate Data is in and our market is showing continued strength, security and has been nearly completely spared from the national housing price crash concerns.

If you scour your favourite news sources, you’ll be sure to find articles such as this:

Special report: five top towns for real estate investors in 2023
Job-generating, affordable Calgary tops our annual list

https://www.westerninvestor.com/british-columbia/special-report-five-top-towns-for-real-estate-investors-in-2023-6034230

or,

Alberta Housing Prices Are Predicted to Rise in 2023 as more people move to the province 
These areas are about to get pricier.

https://www.narcity.com/calgary/alberta-housing-prices-predicted-to-rise-in-2023-more-people-moving-to-province

or,

Beginning of the end for Canada’s housing market downturn? Calgary the exception to the rule

https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/beginning-of-the-end-for-canadas-housing-market-downturn/

So, the secret is out! The national news has finally caught up with the times and people are taking notice. 

It all breaks down to this: Amidst this continued ‘market shift’ hitting North America, Calgary is proving to be the one place that could avoid all of it. Not only that, but it’s also more likely we will see an increase in prices in 2023 versus any chance of a downward slide. 

What we know is this:

Interest rates at their new highs are here to stay, and stay for a while. It may bump up a little more with the December 7th rate news, and it may come down a little at the back half of 2023… but, more or less, what you see is what you are going to get for the foreseeable future.

And Canadians are now getting accustomed to it. 

Real estate deals happen because life continues to happen despite the changes to the global economy, rate changes and stock market swings. Babies continue to be born, kids graduate from high school and college, marriages happen, deaths happen, divorces happen, investment happens, retirement happens, etc. 

So… real estate will, no doubt, continue to be traded just as often as it ever was and more people are choosing to live in the Greater Calgary area than ever before (and this trend won’t be slowing down for a long time). 

Couple this with the latest news…

This means we’ve added 50% to our population and our inventory levels right now equal that of a market with 600,000 fewer people. So, the inventory story isn’t just that we are low, it’s that we are incredibly low especially when we factor in our population growth and corresponding needs.

While our sales have pulled back due to rapidly rising interest rates, net migration & overall in-migration is ballooning to all-time highs for our city. So, in that situation what do you think tends to happen?

So, yes, despite all these crazy changes, the only market that’s seen a little bit of a price decline is the Detached market (down about 4% from our March/April high). All other property types have either seen a pure flatline or a slight increase in their value.

If you are a homeowner reading this, you can feel confident that your equity hasn’t eroded much at all, and your real estate has been the been the best asset to hold while the world shakes and shutters here for a bit.

So, as a result, as I write this on December 5th, I’m going to plant a flag here – something I rarely fully stick my neck out and do – and say that this, right now, is our bottom. 

December’s numbers, as they always are, will be very light, which means not a lot of sales and we will see another massive reduction in inventory (probably to levels we’ve not really seen since the turn of the century). This, despite being in the slowest part of the year, will keep pricing flat (not declining).

And then, as we open back up from January onward, Greater Calgary will see a rise in its pent-up demand, buyers will come off the fence as life plans start to take hold, and we will see 2023 drive a pretty significant year-over-year price increase once again (just as our November data showed a 9+ percent year-over-year increase, or an extra $50K+ per average household, give or take).

So, what does all this mean?

Right here, right now in December will be the best prices you will ever see again in the Calgary housing market. So, if you can grab a deal now, go for it! Do it with confidence.

Some builders have gotten a little antsy as sales have slowed because they have true costs now on the table (staffing, payroll, overhead, lending costs & debt on nearly completed projects for which they need to get rid of), so to keep their machine rolling it’s quite likely you’ll see a little give from them right now.

But I predict that will go away very quickly as we roll past the Christmas holidays and the market fully awakens in the new year. 

So that’s really it for this month. I felt there was no point hitting you with all the data from last month’s results – the picture I’ve just painted is the most important thing for you as you look to make your real estate plans and decisions.

As always, this is an overall summary, not advice to be taken for each satellite market, each price point, or each property style. Be sure you consult with your agent to build your strategy utilizing this summarized message I’ve provided. 

If you need somebody who can do this, reach out and we will hook you up with a specialist from Redline’s group of 90+ agents. 

Happy Holidays, and I hope you have incredible month of December. 
See you in the new year!

What makes Calgary’s market different?

No charts. No graphs. Barely any data. 

This month’s Market Update will be quick and to the point, yet full of everything you need to know right now about the Greater Calgary Real Estate Market.

Let’s start off by talking about the elephant in the room – interest rates! Yes, in their infinite wisdom the Bank of Canada has once again increased its overnight lending rate by another 50 basis points. 

So, in English this means that for the typical Calgary home buyer purchasing an average benchmark-priced home of $525k, it will now cost them the price of a Starbucks latte more per day to own their next property. 

This isn’t the end of the world, but that additional $160 or so per month will adjust some people’s buying power as a result (something none of us want to continue seeing unnecessarily).

And this opens the question: Will this continue?
And will we see another bump? Right now it seems there are just as many camps suggesting that yes, another increase is needed, as there are saying it’s time to pause now and allow the consumer price index to show in the months to come how much these increases have truly dropped it (in essence, curbing inflation in Canada). 

This remains TBD –To Be Determined. Stick with us and we will continue to report on this as it unfolds. 

Okay, let’s take a look at the real estate results from the month of October.

THE SALES SUMMARY

Here’s the deal… sales are down, no question. When we compare to October 2021, our real estate board reports we are down by a full 15% year-over-year. This amount of change could be cause for concern without proper context. So, let me give it to you.

Last year we experienced the highest-selling month of October ever in Calgary’s history!  This equated to a full 35% higher than long-term averages. It was a whopper! 

And looking at the situation even closer, despite being down 15% from last year we still find ourselves about 15% ahead of long-term averages. So, this is a case where context really helps tell the true sales story. 

Now, one thing to note here is that there is a tale of two sales markets. There’s the Detached & Semi-Detached market and then the Apartment & Row Home market.  

Sales for Detached & Semis have had the decline in numbers, with about a 30% pull back from last year, while Rows & Apartments are continuing to sell significantly more than in years past, up by 18 & 20%, respectively.  

The pace at which Apartments & Rows are selling right now are above levels we’ve ever had in our history at this time of year. So, hang on tight if you are in those markets to buy or sell!

And one more thing that I feel is equally important to note – overall in Calgary, sales month-to-month have barely adjusted at all. Despite the buyer pessimism, the recent rate hikes and the pending recession, we have yet to see a seasonal slowdown. 

I think we sold about 40 fewer homes in October than in September. That’s absolutely negligible. 

So, I’ll sum up the Sales Summary with 2 things:

Things remain positive on the ‘demand’ front (i.e. people want to buy homes) 

And, under the category of ‘It Depends’…

Property type and price range details are required for you to make the most educated decision for your families buying and selling needs (be sure to get this from your trusted real estate advisor).

THE INVENTORY STORY

While the Sales story is a tale of 2 markets, ‘Inventory’ has just 1 major story. Inventory remains down all across the board. 

We are seeing that the number of new listings coming to market is equal to, or considerably lower, than last year. 

As a result of sales continuing to maintain steam and new listings coming to market continuing to lag, we end up with a market where the total amount of available homes to purchase is becoming extremely low. 

Right now we have a record low amount of available properties to buy for any October in our city’s history. This amounts to a 20% reduction from last year and 31% lower than long-term averages. That’s a big-time drop!

But it’s not even across the board. The lower the price point of homes, the less inventory we have. This makes the below-average price points highly competitive right now. 

Let me explain this a bit further before we talk about pricing. 

We determine the pace of the market a few ways, and one of them is the ratio of Sales to New Listings that come to market. 

Like I’ve said before… the higher the ratio, the faster and tighter the market. 

City wide we are at 85%. This is nearly equivalent to our peak months earlier this year. 

Detached, Semis & Apartments sit right at 83%, but…

Row Homes are at 106%. This means there are more sales happening than there are new listings coming to market (thus depleting the number of homes to view each and every day).

Any way you look at it, this remains a high buyer demand market. 

In order to further drive this point home, I did make one graph (so I lied earlier 😄).

Looking at this Months of Supply vs Price Range graph, you can see that not only are the different property types acting differently, but the different price ranges are, as well.

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

‘Months of Supply’ meaning that, if we stopped listing any new homes on the market, that’s how long would it take to sell everything we have. The lower the number, the tighter and more competitive the market.

You’ll see that the Months of Supply for everything under $600k is under 2 months, and as the prices climb it goes up to 4 months (above $1M).

Two months of supply is Seller’s Market territory (i.e. in the favour of the seller).

Four months is a Buyer’s Market (i.e. favours the buyer).

So – as much as I wanted to make things simple – because the market is acting differently among the various segments, it does take a wee bit of explaining to get my points across. 

Let’s finish up with the PRICING PICTURE. 

For the astute ‘Numbers’ Guy or Gal, it’s likely you can sniff out where the market data is going to point us to because our pricing always follow the supply & demand fundamentals.

With sales staying steady…
With active homes on the market dropping…
The positive pressure remains in our Greater Calgary marketplace. 

When this happens, it provides us with stability in our pricing. Which simply means – once again – NO CRASH is happening here! 

As a whole, month-over-month, we saw a $3,500 adjustment downward in our benchmark price across all October sales vs September’s. That, again, is relatively insignificant and negligible. 

Looking further back, we have only adjusted 4% from the mid-FRENZIES market peak (not even by as much as $20K).

This is in vast contrast to the other major Canadian markets of Toronto & Vancouver, where they are seeing pricing slide by hundreds of thousands of dollars – and, in some cases, all the back to pre-Covid pricing – erasing 2 years of hyper price growth. 

Why are they dropping like a rock and why are we floating like a boat? It’s for a few reasons:

1. They hyper grew for years & years & years. It was overinflated, fueled by things other than economic fundamentals, and now they are paying the price 

2. Our market slowly crept out of a dismal half decade on back of true economic fundamentals driven by supply & demand, not speculation in the market.

Calgarians are not immune to the recessionary times coming to Canada, but our real estate market is ‘battle tested’ and ready to hold its own among the best in North America. Even the naysayers are now saying that we will come out of this just fine. 

So, do I have some advice for you right now? Of course, I do! 😀

There is absolutely no reason to delay your life plans as a result of any concerns regarding the Calgary real estate market. 

If you need to buy – do it.  

If you can afford it and want to buy – do it. 

If you want to invest – invest proudly in Greater Calgary. 

If you need to sell – feel confident, the market is there looking for you.  

If you need to tighten up your personal balance sheet out of concern for the talked-about recession and economic uncertainty in your situation – you will have no problem making the necessary real estate adjustments to better serve your family’s needs. 

With all the panic out there – don’t let Real Estate be the thing that concerns you.  Thank you for reading. I hope this helped, and if you need more granular or specific advice for your personal situation, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Redline | Real Broker – we’ve got an army of specialists for each and every real estate niche you could imagine.

Could the CRASH really come to Calgary? 

In times of uncertainty – as more time passes with continued inflation talk, tax hikes like the other day’s House of Commons motion, interest rate hikes and overall housing price crash concerns in the media – my experience shows me that there are two camps of people forming…

The camp that takes the information in, makes adjustments and continues to push forward with their life plans…

And those that take the information in, but end up in a sort of ‘paralysis mode’, unable to decide what action to take.

Now, this it may sound like I’m being a little harsh, but I’d suggest you ponder it just a second and take stock of which camp you’ve been finding yourself in lately.

I say this because, as Realtors, we don’t help people buy and sell houses. We help people as they undergo their biggest life changes.  

People’s ability to undergo these changes are certainly impacted by the external elements happening around them, but paralysis or inaction is nearly never in their best interests as life continues to push on. Things like: 

It’s with this message that I hope to continue shedding light on the most accurate reality I can paint here in the Greater Calgary market. 

So, let’s get into the nitty gritty…

The end of September marked something interesting that I’d like you to take note of. It’s now been 1 full quarter – or 90+ days – that Canadians have been dealing with interest rates that are at or over 2 percentage points above what we had been accustomed to for years.

In other words, we’ve now undergone a complete cycle of buyers & sellers who got into the game and made a move since the rate bumps & peak pricing in our city. This group made a move without the benefits of the ultra-low rates we’d had before and before the 15-20% price increases.

Essentially, this group of buyers and sellers were only exposed to our ‘new normal’ – higher prices than ever and rates now back up to around historical norms. This is the group that our recent stats have been speaking about and, in my opinion, give us a pretty clear picture of what’s actually going on.

So, let’s start – as we often do – with the SALES SUMMARY.

Sales are down right now. Stats show around 12% fewer homes were sold last month than in September of 2021. 

That is also an 11% drop from August, which is now about a 50% sales drop from our peak in March. 

But looking beyond that, I would like to share 2 key points:  

This past March saw sales numbers 30-40% higher than we’d ever expect at that time of year, so that earlier negative comparison isn’t terribly relevant.  

And secondly, September 2021 broke records in a post-Covid, high pent-up demand and ultra-low interest rate environment. So, again, not a marker that’s particularly useful to compare to. 

Historically, when it’s just the data being considered, this September’s total sales number will go down in the history books as a Top 5 September in the Calgary market. That’s pretty good, all things considered.

However, things are continuing to shape up quite differently across the 4 property types.

Detached and Semi-Detached homes are where we are seeing the main slowdown – 23 & 27% less than last year, respectively.  With Detached being by far our largest sector, its 23% year-over-year slump is what has dragged down our overall sales stats. 

Reduced affordability from rate hikes results in fewer sales in single family homes in general. This is starting to show up as homes in the $600k – $1 Million price range are starting to take a little longer to sell, and we are seeing a little bump up in active inventory, too, adding to the slowdown.

Homes valued below this price bracket are hard to find and selling fast. The stuff above that price point doesn’t seem to be phased at all and continues to sell at same pace as last year. 

Where affordability is concerned, the sales pace for the Apartment segment continues to drive forward with incredible momentum. To put it into perspective, September had more apartment sales than in any given month in 2021. And, if you remember, 2021 was a really fantastic overall real estate market.

Along with that, our Row Home market – the second most affordable market – is near even with last year’s pace. And that, again, is saying something because of how strong Rows were at this point last year.

Let’s continue to round out the message with our INVENTORY STORY.

With sales slowing overall, what is happening here is critically important. And if you’ve been following any of my updates for the last 18 months to 2 years, you’ll be very familiar with this message.

The number of active properties on the market is very, very, very low!

Regardless of sales slowing and concerns about affordability, we are in a record low active inventory position. Simply put, not a lot of new homes coming to market and not a lot of overall homes to look at. 

Now, there are a few sub-stories here,

Regarding the Detached market, where things have slowed the most…

As of October 3rd, there were 453 single-family homes on the market under $500k.  In the month of September there were 283 sales. 

That’s only 1.6 months of supply.  Good sales + low inventory = Tight.

Now, looking at the $600k-S1 million price bracket,  as discussed earlier, it looks like this…

331 single-family homes have sold in the last 30 days and we currently have 930 active on the market. That represents 2.8 month of inventory. 

This is now in ‘balanced’ territory – not a seller’s market. 

So, we need to be absolutely dialed in when making real estate decisions today. Please ensure you are getting tactical and relevant advice from your trusted real estate advisor. 

One extra thing about Inventory – the active number of homes on the market for Semi-Detached, Row homes and Apartments are between 26 and 34% less than at this same time last year. That’s a combined 900 fewer properties on the market to look at and buy.

The more affordable the product, the tighter the market. And as the price point creeps up, so does the inventory, just a bit.

What do you think this does for our ability to fight off a crash? It’s a pretty strong case.

Let’s finish off with our PRICING PICTURE.  

This is the one that gets most of the headlines, most of the comments on YouTube and most of the mixed messages, so I’ll do my best to provide the context you need. 

I like looking at this in a few different ways… 


How are we doing since last year at the same time?

And how have we done during the last full quarter’s buying/selling cycle?

 So, let’s start with the year-over-year figures…

As a whole, despite the changes since the interest rate bumps, we remain between 10 and 15% higher in terms of benchmark sale price than we were at the same time last year! That’s a huge win on all fronts.

Some may want to chime in and say “Well, what’s happened since the market peak earlier this year?” but I would ask why that even matters because – unless you are a flipper or have had a financial hardship since being a buyer at the peak – real estate is a longer play for literally everyone else and the trend matters over years & years, not in the last few months. 

That being said, our house prices are down 3.4% overall since the peak, which equates to about $18k for the average home.

Specifically, though, this number differs greatly depending on location, from the satellite communities to Calgary’s downtown core.  We see price growth from as low as just a few percent all the way up to over 20%.

So, be careful about the information you hear and take action on. 

The 2nd point I want to make concerns our most recent buying cycle – the last 90-120 days since rates skyrocketed and affordability plummeted as a result…

Detached prices

$647k to $628k – a 2.9% decline

Semi-Detached prices

$581k to $562k – a 2.2% decline

Row Home prices

$364k to $362k – a 0.5% decline

Apartment prices

$277k to $278k – a 0.3% increase

This last bit of information tells a great story about the state of the market because buyers and sellers have come to market during the current circumstance of uncertainty, rising interest rates, spiking inflation and doing so during a quieter time of the seasonal sales cycle.

From here nobody really knows what will happen, as we’ll likely get another rate bump in October. But so far, with more than a 2% increase, we’ve already shown prices to be pretty resilient.

Now, the most important point of this whole update…

I hate to sound like a broken record, but it remains very important for us in Alberta, and Calgary specifically, to continue to note the additional macro elements positively affecting our economy and therefore our real estate market:

  1. We just experienced the highest net migration to Alberta ever!! Yes, ever. Take a look at this 5-year graph. Look at the massive recent influx of people to our province!
Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

Then look at this graphic, showing net migration back to before the double-digit price run of 2004-2007, when Alberta was kicking on all cylinders!  We brought nearly 10,000 more people to the province this quarter than during the best quarters of that period.

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

Then you go back even farther to this graph showing growth prior to the 1980s. The big boom we experienced prior to the elder Trudeau’s screwups still didn’t hold a candle to our most recent quarter! 

So, it’s stats like this – and like our unemployment numbers (below) – that keep painting the picture that Alberta will be a-okay during all of this. 

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

Oh! And I can’t forget to talk about our tax rates here…

Yes, Alberta is the place for Canadians to prosper, to build wealth, to build retirement savings, to earn & keep the most income and to enjoy a standard of living not found anywhere else in our great country. 

Table

Description automatically generated

This isn’t ‘Alberta Realtor’ rhetoric. No, this is cold, hard fact. And due to the housing price gap, we will be singing this song for well over half a decade to come, if not longer!

So, could the crash really come to Calgary? My bet continues to be ‘No’. And remember… if you require any market information relating to your specific situation, please don’t hesitate to let us know so a market specialist at Redline can be connected with you!

Summer is over… but is Calgary’s Real Estate Run?

Okay, at this point if you have followed our updates over the course of the last 3 months we’ve been discussing the “shift” that is starting to happen in our market.  We’ve taken the time to express things like:

So, this month I’m not going to talk about any of that. You know those things – and the news keeps repeating the same messages – so let’s move on to what I feel are the most important things I can comment on from our recent set of data.

Today we will talk about Pricing: Payments & Projections.

I could talk to you about the amount of New Sales – it’s basically the same as we had last August and still in line with one of the highest recorded Augusts of all time – but I won’t bore you. 

I could talk to you about our Inventory – it’s basically at an all-time low and we are listing even less than we have recently, further keeping it tight – but that story is like a broken record, too, so I won’t. 

So, let’s skip all of that and focus on Pricing. 

With all the talk about interest rate bumps and possible future increases, the majority of our conversation is centred around the actual benchmark prices and what will happen to them. 

I can tell you one thing first. We have dropped. Eeeeeeeekk!

I did a little calculation and, as whole, we are down 2.6% from our peak in May.  From $546k to $531,800.

So, yeah, across the 2,136 sales in the month of August the price has slid down a wee bit.  For further context, this is basically the amount on average we can negotiate off on a given listing price. So, it’s not a lot at all. 

Secondly, in terms of pricing, I did another calculation for you. We remain up 7.4% from January – just 8 months ago – which equates to about $36,500 for the average home. That’s a lot of money. That’s a $4,500 increase per month this year.   

And third, our pricing is up 11% from this exact time last year. That’s a whopping $52,800!  Or a gain of $150 per day for the entire year.  All I can say is “Yippee!”

This story continues to be the case across all districts, all price ranges and all surrounding areas to some degree. Year-over-year we are all winning, no matter what real estate we own. If you need information about your specific property type & price range, simply reach out to us as it’s really a hyper specific answer you’ll need to make an executive decision in your life. 

Okay that’s enough about pricing for the moment.  Let’s now start talking about Payments…

I wanted to talk about this because I want to shed some light on the phrase ‘Don’t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait.’

I’m sure you’ve heard this before.

Well, during our little run up in February through May lots of people focused on the rising sales prices and thought they should sit on the fences and wait, thus ignoring this history-proven truism.

Things like this were said…
“It’s a bubble. The prices will crash. I’ll just wait.”
Or “I don’t want to compete on a home, no sense over-paying” and so on…

Let me paint the real world scenario of doing that:

Scenario 1.  Bought a home at the peak in March to May.
Average payment for 5% down would have been about $1,180 bi-weekly. 

Scenario 2.  Bought a home now after prices have ‘crashed’.
Average payment for 5% down would now be $1,430 bi-weekly. 

What?? Wait!! How could it be more?

Well, it’s no secret that interest rates have risen – in our case about 2%.  This rise in rates is far worse for the buyer than the slightly higher price they had to pay.  

To make this even more clear, I could have added $100,000 to the average sale price, and the bi-weekly payments would still be less than they are now.

Did we know rates would jump this much? No, but the writing was on the wall.  

Did we know prices would basically hold? Yes, we did. There were absolutely no economic fundamentals in Alberta that would point to a true crash. It was all headline talk and centred on the national picture, not ours. 

Back to that quote – ‘Don’t wait to buy real estate, buy right estate and wait’ – lets continue painting that picture…

Scenario 1 – Over the 5-year term you’d pay 91k in principal down on your home. 

Scenario 2 (now) – You’ll pay down 76k in principal. It’s kinda close but it’s still 15% less, or about 15k.

And furthermore…

Scenario 1 – Over 5 years you would have paid 62k in interest.  

Now, in Scenario 2, you will pay 107k.  This is a whopping 72% increase, or 45k. Ouch!

I share all this as a present-day, real-world scenario worth paying attention to. It is very rare – and history has proven it time & time again – that it doesn’t pay to buy now, versus waiting.  It literally never happens unless you are looking at a very short 1-2 year timeline to enter and exit the market. 

So, yes, the saying remains true – looking long-term, always buy real estate and wait. Don’t sit on the sidelines hoping for a better time. 

Okay, I think you get my point, so let’s finish now with the third P – Projections! 

What is going to happen now? I would challenge you, coming off my second point – “Does it really matter?” If you are interested to own real estate now & into the future, it will remain a positive thing to do. 

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

But further to that, these are a few things I’m expecting to see:

We will see slight month-over-month price declines from now through to spring. I believe that, as a whole, we could see another 2-5% price easing before we commence with the next spring market.  

Now, this will be different for every price point & property type. 

Most, if not all, will likely be felt in the detached market.  As affordability continues to be a driver, more people will look to more affordable options like semi-detached homes, row homes & apartments. 

And this is exactly what Augusts’ data shows. The semi & row home market is very tight right now. You won’t see much in the way of deals at all.  So much so that the sales-to-new-listing ratio has actually increased this month.  

Which simply means that the amount of sales relative to new listings is increasing.  

As well, seasonally right now we will see fewer and fewer new properties come to market in the back half of the year. But this is happening while our sales are still near record high numbers.  

These two things coupled together will keep condos, rows and semis all in a seller’s market. 

The comeback of the condo remains in full swing.  Year-over-year sales are up 58% and this trend will likely continue. Watch this market continue to tighten as we proceed to Christmas. 

So, I expect our Greater Calgary Market to continue its strength. We have a lot of economic positives going on and we have a supply/demand situation that continues to stoke the fire.

I am also predicting one extra thing… 

Regardless of what happens with the September rate hike, or future rate hikes the feds may cook up, the lenders are going to start getting creative. 

If there are fewer deals out there for banks to get, they are going to be forced to get competitive with each other and you’ll see products & temporary rate games being played to get your business.  

Banks need to lend money in order to make money. So, they will find a way and we will benefit.

And that’s all for this month! If you require any market information relating to your specific situation, please don’t hesitate to let us know so a market specialist at Redline can be connected with you!

Hello and welcome to July’s market update!  You get me, Brett, for this month’s video as Darren takes a little bit of well deserved time off, and you’re going to want to stick around for the whole video because our market is starting to feel the effects of a change in interest rates by the bank of Canada, and things will be a little different from this point on for Calgary.  

So, our update this month is a bit of good and bad, just like a proper Calgary Stampede and the resulting hangover. We’ll discuss the market at a high level, and also cover all of the asset classes individually, including some advice for buyers, sellers and investors.  Ready for the latest intel?  Alright, well let’s get going.  

Ok so let’s talk about my favorite real estate statistic – months of supply.  The reason it’s my favourite is because it serves as a gauge between supply and demand and it can be counted on at any time of year in any market anywhere on earth.  Prices and sales volumes don’t give context, but over 3 months of supply is considered a buyers market, and under 3 is considered a sellers market, and in July Calgary reported 2.37 months of supply – lower than last year, but not quite as solidly in seller demand territory as we observed earlier in the spring.  

Graphical user interface, application

Description automatically generated

Now, seeing this statistic go DOWN is actually a sign of the market heating UP, as the lower the number is the less inventory there is relative to the pace of buyer demand. So, relative to where we were in 2021 we are experiencing more demand, but in terms of a 2022 trend we’re actually softening up just a little bit as you can see this number is climbing up from a low of about 1.4 months of supply earlier in the year. 

Don’t let that worry you though, as Calgary has had a great year and prices are holding, as our current average price is well above $500 grand, currently sitting at $540,000 and up over fifty thousand dollars from this point last year, a great improvement for Calgary. 

But a look at the trend over the last few months is a bit more indicative of what it actually feels like out there right now –  flat over the last few months, despite strong year over year results.  

And you can see this trend across pretty well all asset classes in Calgary, with Detached prices up 15 over last year at six hundred and forty three thousand dollars, but looking to have stabilized at the midway point of the year.  

Page Break 

Semi detached and row pricing is about the same, increasing by 12 and 15 percent year over year, to average prices of five hundred and seventy six thousand and three hundred and sixty two thousand dollars respectively.  

Ok I’m going to take a bit of a pause here to focus in on apartment condominiums a little more for July, and take a quick look at this graph which illustrates an important trend.  

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

From my perspective, one of the brightest spots of 2022 so far has been the recovery of the apartment condominium market in Calgary.  For YEARS I have been lamenting how soft it has been, but the strong spring market has us returning to balanced market territory for condominiums, as we have finally drawn down on the high inventory levels and achieved a balanced months of supply metric of 3 point 0.  

Chart, histogram

Description automatically generated

But there’s a catch… The reason I wanted to single out apartment condos is because they are unique compared to other asset classes, in that it is much easier for Developers to add supply of apartments, which makes this asset class much more volatile to swings in demand.  So buyers of apartment condos should be a bit more cautious than they were earlier in the spring as we are starting to see more inventory hitting the market while sales are dropping off, which means prices will level out and may even decrease heading into the fall and winter of this year.  

Ok now, back to the overall market.  

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

If you take a look here, you can see that prices are starting to stabilize and even drop just a little bit from the peak in the spring, but more importantly we are staring to see a trend of more and more inventory and fewer and fewer sales, which means we’re looking at a softer market condition heading into the latter half of the year, which is traditionally slower than the spring and early summer anyways.  So a great time to buy for value as things will be more balanced for the rest of the year.  

Chart, bar chart, line chart

Description automatically generated
Chart

Description automatically generated

But what about if you’re a seller?  Should this trend concern you?  Well, you may have missed the peak of the market this year, but hindsight is always 20 20 so don’t beat yourself up about it.  Prices are not as sensitive as sales volumes when it comes to reacting to market factors. I expect you will still achieve a very healthy price for your home in the back half of the year, it just may not come with several buyers competing for it at once.  

Ok so the market is cooling a bit, and we are inching closer to a more balanced market.  Is there anything else we need to know? 

Well, we should take a moment to look at Calgary from a big picture view, and see how it stacks up against the two biggest real estate markets in the country.  

First up is the GTA, which sits at an eye watering average price of over 1.2 million dollars 

Graphical user interface, application

Description automatically generated

And next is Vancouver, which is about the same price 

Graphical user interface, application, email

Description automatically generated

Calgary is less than half the price of these two markets, even with a 15% increase from our 2021 pricing.  That presents a great story for both buyers and sellers – as each can have confidence that our market has a lot of room to grow to catch up to these two centers, who surely have more lose than we do.

The best half a year of all time in Greater Calgary Real Estate!! Now what?

Despite the recent ‘pull back’ being discussed in the headlines everywhere we have just completed the greatest 6 months of sales in our history. 

Graphical user interface, text, application, email

Description automatically generated

So, regardless of where you sit on the ‘doom & gloom’ or ‘full steam ahead’ fence, this fact is now in our history books.

Homeowners all across our province have seen a well-deserved rise in their net worth & household equity, providing a sense of comfort and security we’ve all longed craved.

So, that is worth celebrating. 

But there is truth to the headlines. Sales this June did see a very small decline from 2021’s numbers, and we did once again see a small decline from May – I think those numbers were -2.4% & -7% respectively. 

What essentially happened is that Greater Calgary had an early spring market. The perfect storm brewed with ultra-low inventory & increased confidence in our economy, while still sitting with near record low interest rates. This resulted in earlier than normal high buyer demand. 

So, March, April & May were the peak of our busy 2022 sales season. Generally that period is April to June. And then we’d typically start to see the ‘pullback’ in July and through the balance of the year… we are just starting that slowdown a little earlier this year.

And, yes, the recent rise in interest rates from the feds has put on the brakes for some, or adjusted their buying power in the market, but life goes on. The demand/dream to own a home always finds a way, regardless of the daggers thrown at it from our politicians & policy makers. 

The ‘pullback’ of June was more focused on the detached & semi-detached markets because they are the more expensive housing markets. So, if people have to tighten their purse strings they will still move, but they will buy a home in a lower price bracket like some of the great row home or condo products. 

Both of those market segments saw a 35% increase in sales over June 2021! 

Looking at this a little deeper, here is a graph showing home sales by price range – year-to-date – versus the last 3 years. 

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

What you’ll see is the red bar – representing 2022 sales – far, far outreaches the yellow 2021 bar (our prior best year ever) almost everywhere across the board. 

So, despite a small pullback in June, it’s a proven fact that Greater Calgarians are okay with spending more money at all parts of our market. And I believe this reality is here to stay.

And one of the reasons for this is our INVENTORY STORY.

Again, despite the headlines talking about an increase in inventory, it’s still absolutely nothing to concern ourselves with. We have the second lowest inventory in the past 15 years as we come out of the month of June.

Comparing to last year, we have 22% less inventory – that’s about 1,500 homes – and nearly half of what we had in June 2018. 

But as we see of sales slowing month by month and inventory continuing to climb little by little, the ‘Sales to New Listings Ratio’ is getting a little looser…

Right now we are at 70%, last month was about 72%, the month before about 75%, and at our peak closer to 80%. 

“Loose” means fewer homes that hit the market sell right away. So, there is more breathing room for buyers right now. This shows up in the ‘Months of Supply’ state, as well. 

Chart, histogram

Description automatically generated

Oh, but wait… “You said it’s getting looser, getting easier for buyers, but that red arrow is showing we are still right near the bottom.” 🤔

Yes, that’s exactly right. 🙂

We’ve loosened up a bit from the ultra-tight noose of March through May, but we remain a very healthy and fast-paced market with Months of Supply still sitting under 2 months. 

Now, it’s right here that I want to add the fact that our story is really starting to change property type by property type & district by district…

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

Let’s look on the far left of this graph, for example, at the Detached section. You’ll see that the City Centre has 3.6 Months of Supply but the Southeast has only 1.08. 

That’s a 233% difference between districts for a single property type! 

And as you look across the whole graph you’ll see this occurs in every product segment.  

Then, when you look across the rural counties within the Calgary Real Estate Board Region, the disparities continue…

I share all this because when the market undergoes a shift, such as we’re seeing, it doesn’t happen everywhere in the same way. 

More than ever, it’s important to have a Realtor that is very in tune with the dynamics happening in your hyper local situation. So, ask the tough questions and make sure they can give you the answers The strategies are going to be different all across the board. 

Okay, let’s get to the PRICING PICTURE. 

As the sales pull back and the Sales to New Listings Ratio loosens up, you’d also expect some slight easing on prices… and that’s exactly what’s happened. Prices, as a whole, adjusted a few thousand dollars down from our May peak. 

But before you panic, this happens nearly every year. If you got back to 2006-2007, you’ll see a peak month and then a basic flat-lining and a small price adjustment heading into the winter, And then, as the new ‘buying season’ perks up, so do prices.

And as has done nearly every year in our history, the year-over-year price trend improves. 

Below is year-over-year chart showing the price increases across all districts & property types – really quite remarkable!

And here are the year-over-year price increases on the Calgary district map…

Diagram

Description automatically generated

The range of price growth is from 8% in the core to 19% in the North, Northeast & Southeast. 

Then, again across the regions of ‘Greater Calgary’ you’ll see as much as 25% price growth in Canmore & Airdrie and down to a 13% increase in Strathmore. 

So, everyone is sharing in the good news Pricing Picture. 

Okay… so, you may be thinking “I get it. We’ve had a great year so far. But I’m worried about everything that’s happening with interest rates and how these increased prices will affect me.”

I understand the concern, but let me share a few things to ease your worry. 

First, let’s look at Net Migration. 

Not only is our growing economy good for us as locals, it’s also attracting more and more people to our province and a great majority of those to our region.

You can see in this graph we are at nearly triple the net migration numbers we were seeing 4-5 years ago.

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

Looking further back…

You can also see that we are now very much in line with some of Calgary’s “heydays” of 2012-2013 and parts of 2014. 

This is really good news for us all & our ability to keep property values steady and increasing despite the interest rate changes. 

More people. More demand. More stability. 

Secondly – Unemployment.

Looking at this graph you will see that unemployment in our area is way down in comparison to the last 8-9 years, and this continues to improve month by month.

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

Lower unemployment means more companies profiting and, therefore, more people working & contributing to our economy. This drives stability in our housing sector. 

So, yes, we had an amazing & record breaking first half of 2022… but, considering everything I’ve shared, we are very well set up to maintain the gains we’ve achieved in our housing price growth.

So, if you have to make a move, be confident. And if you are out looking to make your very first move – also be confident. 

If you aren’t ready for that purchase yet, know that the overall economy is in a good place and the sooner you can get there the sooner you’ll be able to start benefiting.

And that’s all for this month! If you require any market information relating to your specific situation, please don’t hesitate to let us know so a market specialist at Redline can be connected with you!

Increased Rates. High Gas Prices. The Market Slowing Down. The sky must be falling, right?

In this update I’m going to share with you the most important things you need to know about the housing results from May 2022 just released by our real estate board. 

We find ourselves nearing the halfway mark of the year and year-to-date it’s been nothing short of a wild ride. 

We started the year off with a bang, completely obliterating 2021’s January by 66%.

Then, in February and March, we experienced record-breaking sales figures for that time of the year. It felt like the 2005 – 2007 boom days around here, but even better. 

Then, in April, despite a pullback in total sales things continued to sell well beyond prior bests.

And the funny thing is that the media & the naysayers were saying the ‘slow down’ was in effect. “Watch out! Brace for impact because the sky is about to fall!”

And this brings us to May.  

So, sadly, I’m here to tell you that I need to eat my positive & optimistic words. Sales did once again fall. They were right. The headline predictions were true. It is time to panic!

Or… maybe not.

Maybe – just maybe – Alberta, and specifically the greater Calgary area, is writing its own story. A story that is unlike other Canadian marketplaces, and unlike many of our North American peers. 

Let me unpack this and share with you the details of our unique story so you can rest easy and leave this update with confidence about the local real estate market. 

THE SALES SUMMARY

Yes, we did see sales slip from April. Which, again, was a slip from March. But that’s not all.  As I said before, “Of course they did.” There is no way on God’s green earth that the sales pace could continue to surpass historical averages by huge margins every month! Of course, months like that were going to be a temporary thing.  

Digging deeper, you’ll see that we recorded 3,071 sales in the month. This is 100 sales per day. And guess what? That makes this is the best May of all time! Once again, we’ve set an all-time record for a given month. Here we are breaking new records and doing so in a year in which we’ve already had such huge gains. 

Calendar

Description automatically generated with medium confidence

So, did sales slow somewhat in comparison to a few recent months? Sure, but it’s nearly irrelevant. 

And when looking Year-to-Date on this chart you see again how far we sit above and beyond recent years. 

Chart

Description automatically generated

THE INVENTORY STORY 

First of all, many people focus heaviest on the total sales number to gauge the market, and I think this is a huge mistake. It’s part of the story, but not the most important part (at least in my opinion) and this is where inventory comes in.

A couple of things are happening here that I want to talk about…

1. New Listings to Market 

So, while sales eased, as a whole, over the last month, so did new listings to market. 

During the busy ‘spring season’ you typically see more and more inventory get flooded to the market. This simply isn’t happening right now. 

For 2 months straight we’ve seen fewer new properties come to market in comparison to last year.  Yes, we listed more in May than April – as we should and always do – but it’s a drop off from the year before. 

Why does this matter? Well, the concern is if sales numbers start to slow, that as inventory climbs it will disrupt the supply & demand equation and apply negative pressure on our pricing… and the sky will fall.

But again, we are writing a different story here. We are not seeing surplus inventory coming to market. We are seeing less than seasonal gains, driving us right into my second point…

2. Active Listing Inventory

Currently we are sitting with a 15+ year low inventory for this time of the year.  This is at the opposite end of the worry spectrum. 

Chart

Description automatically generated

Again, why does this matter?  Well, if inventory on the market remains near record lows, those who “may” be concerned about housing values staying steady should know that we have a great deal of buffer room if sales do slow down far enough.

But remember, I just finished saying that last month was the best-selling May of all time. So, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand how we are writing a different story than the rest of Canada. 

Okay let’s transition to the 3rd point in our market update triangle…

THE PRICING PICTURE

What does all of this mean in terms of our housing values? 

Here is the gist of it.. year-over-year our pricing gains remain nice and strong with 14.5% growth overall. 

Detached – up 16.6%

Semi-Detached – up 14.6%

Row Homes – up 16.7% 

And Apartments – up 8.9%

So, very strong across the board. And strong across all areas, both in & around the city.

Diagram

Description automatically generated
Diagram

Description automatically generated

This is also a month-over-month price gain of about $1,700. All of this happening amidst the  ‘market slowing’ and ‘sky is falling’ messaging that is out there.

Yes, the month-over-month growth has slowed, But, again, of course it has. 

People will talk about the average sale price and the median sale price adjustments as declining since February and March, but this simply doesn’t matter as much as benchmark. Benchmark is the truest metric of the market for us to use and to provide the most accurate measure of the specific market activity. 

Sales in the Apartment & Row Home markets soared in May. And those markets are priced more affordably, so as you record more sales in the cheaper parts of the market it will obviously change the average home price accordingly. So again, this is why benchmark provides the truest indication of what’s happening. 

SUMMARY

So, let me bring this all together for you…

You might be saying “Yeah, that all sounds great, but aren’t the government interest rate hikes and inflation going to continue to hurt us?”

Well, first of all, there is no hiding from the mess the government has gotten us into. Nobody is going to be sheltered from the economic strain this will cause to each and every Canadian household. But there is a silver lining and there needs to be some intelligent discussion around it and, specifically, our local situation.

Number 1

Here in Alberta we sit atop the Canadian Average Salary chart. Which means we simply have the most money per household.

Table

Description automatically generated

Number 2

As I’ve mentioned many a time, take a look at this to see how nicely our housing prices sit among our Canadian peers (who, as just mentioned, make less on average than us).

Not only did our year-over-year number grow by one of the lowest percentages in Canada, but we continue to be far lower than Canada’s big employment centres. Yet our power as an economy continues to push up & up.

Chart

Description automatically generated

And then, further to that, our recent price growth is the only price growth we’ve had since 2014. That certainly has not been the case elsewhere in Canada.  

And no, just because we didn’t grow doesn’t mean we aren’t going to be affected. It’s more than that. It’s because we didn’t grow and everywhere else continued to get worse off in terms of their housing affordability. In tough times people will gravitate to where they can afford to live and build a family. And right now, that’s here.

Remember, we have some of the cheapest real estate for a major urban centre and we earn the most. That’s a killer combo! 

A study released just a few days ago found Calgary to be 10th in the world in terms of affordability. That is something to hold confidence in and something that doesn’t change overnight. 

Number 3 

I can’t finish this update without discussing interest rates. 

Take a look at this graph. Look to the far right. What do you notice?

Chart, histogram

Description automatically generated

This is where we’re at after the last 2 interest rate increases. And there is the continued messaging that they’re going to get bumped up again this year.

So, looking at this graph, do you think that – taking into account points #1 & points #2 (already discussed and I’m assuming agreed upon) – we can weather a bit of a storm when it comes to those interest rate hikes and those yet to come?

The answer here locally – where we earn the most in Canada and are one of the most affordable places on the planet – is a resounding Yes. 

I’m in real estate – I earn my living as a realtor – and, yes, I do better when more people are excited about buying and selling real estate. But nowhere in my discussion today, nor in any of my market updates to date, did my reporting on things coming from a place of greed or “airy fairy” commentary. This stuff is fact – cold, hard macro-economic fact – that gives me a great deal of confidence in the Greater Calgary real estate market. 

And that’s all for this month! If you require any market information relating to your specific situation, please don’t hesitate to let us know so a market specialist at Redline can be connected with you!

Is the wind out of the sails of Calgary & Area Real Estate already??

Darren, have I missed the window?” 

“Is the market starting to cool down?”

“I knew this wouldn’t last!”

“People were overpaying earlier this year and it bit them in the butt, I just knew it!”

Have you heard some of this? Or been a part of some of these discussions?

Come on, I know you have 🙂

Well, those thoughts are out there, even among members of the real estate industry.

You see, the reality is that most people – even Realtors – are ‘reactors’ to the news, or ‘reactors’ to the market, and not really in a position of strength to fully understand what is going on.

And that’s okay. (Well, maybe not the ‘your realtor’ part.)

So, that’s why I love creating these updates for you, to give you straight talk and curb any anxiety you may have about today’s real estate climate. 

Let’s start with SALES. 

The first thing you may hear is that sales have dropped. “Eeeeek!”

Well, yes, they have. Calgary & area did not record as many sales in April as we did in March. But honestly, nobody should have expected that. Nor was it needed to show a sustained positivity in our housing demand. March was a ‘unicorn’ month and one firmly planted in the record books. 

April did, however, see an increase in sales over last April by about 6% overall. 

This did vary widely between the property types. 

Detached saw a 9% decline in sales, while Row & Apartments saw gains of over 40% and our Semi-Detached market was basically flat. 

“How can there be such a wide variety of results?” you may be asking. Well, honestly, it comes down to a few simple things…

INVENTORY

With more inventory hitting the market and more on the market to buy, you’ll naturally see a higher number of sales (while in a seller’s market, like we are). Each of the 4 market categories saw a drastically different number of new listings come to market in April.

PRICING

As house values increase, affordability comes into question. So, for buyers who haven’t seen increases in their pay to match those increased home values, they turn from Detached buyers to Semi buyers, or Semi buyers to Rowhouses, or Row to Apartments. 

Now, this variety of sales activity isn’t only being seen in the Metro market of Calgary. As we extend our lens to the communities around Calgary you’ll see a similar dynamic happening.

Airdrie recorded 24% more sales than last year in April, but Cochrane saw 20% less. And Okotoks, at 9% more, was similar to Calgary. 

Again, the two factors I just mentioned – Inventory and Pricing – come into play here, and I’ll explain a bit more as we go through this update. 

Okay, let’s turn our attention to the INVENTORY STORY. 

As a whole, we saw fewer new homes hit the market this April than we saw come to market in April 2021. This was the first time in a while that this has occurred. 

Now, it’s not even across the board again. Here’s the breakdown…

Detached homes saw an 8% year-over-year drop of new properties coming to market, while Semis dropped off by 17%.  Row Homes, meanwhile, had a 24% increase and Apartments saw a slight inventory increase of 7%. 

So, if you’ve followed me so far, you’ll notice this trend:

Fewer new listings in the Detached market for buyers to look at resulted in a drop in total sales.

An increase in new listings for Row Home buyers resulted in an increase in sales.

It’s just part of the ebb and flow of the market and there is no need to panic, as some seem to be doing. 

The same thing is happening in our satellite markets: 

New listings are up in Airdrie and so are sales. 

New listing are down in Cochrane and so are sales.

And the same pattern holds true in the other local markets

Here are the hard facts:

As a whole, Sales remain up. Inventory remains down.

As a result pressure on our housing values goes up, which we see is continuing to happen. 

So, let’s talk about that now… THE PRICING PICTURE!

Year-over-year our overall benchmark price in the region is up a whopping 17%! 

Detached homes are up 19%, Semis are up by 16%, Rows up by 17% and Apartments are up by 8% for their biggest year-over-year gain since likely 2006. 

Satellite regions are performing even better, with Airdrie stealing the show with a year-over-year price increase of 33%, Canmore at 29%, Cochrane at 24%, and it trickles down from there – all incredibly positive.

The home value increases we started to see in 2021 are continuing to build strength and the sustainability of this run is proving itself more-so each and every day.

Allow me to explain. First, it’s everywhere. Check out this graph – there isn’t a sector that isn’t at least achieving an 8% year-over-year price gain. The entire market is now getting into gear. It shows strength in all price ranges & all economic situations. 

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

And we’re only just getting started. 

As you can see, we’ve only seen really one year of this upward trend. Pre-Covid Calgary & area had very little to cheer about. The pandemic hit in April 2020 as our market was at rock bottom. 2021 was our awakening year and it handled a lot of the pent-up demand from 2020 and probably even before that. 

Then, this year is our first true representation of our market performing fully on its own, without being influenced by outside factors. And when a market starts to adjust upwards, it doesn’t happen just once, it becomes a 3, 4, 5, 6+ year run. We are just at the beginning. 

Chart

Description automatically generated

First fix, then get the reward.

You see, the biggest issue back in those dreary days from 2015-2020 wasn’t that demand for buying homes was so low. It was just that we had backed ourselves into a corner, with the total number of homes on the market being way too high, putting negative pressure on our housing market for years. 

So, it took a few years to correct that, going from negative year-over-year numbers, to a flat-line situation, and now to a position of seeing value bumps. 

This, again, is a situation that we are just starting to see. 

Chart

Description automatically generated

And, like I said earlier, we are seeing this everywhere – all across Calgary’s 8 districts and across our entire region.

Diagram

Description automatically generated
Diagram

Description automatically generated

The re-writing of Alberta’s script from Covid, oil prices, diversification, the unaffordable costs of living in the other major Canadian cities and the still historically low interest rates (yes, despite the recent bumps), has created a sustained path to increased housing prices. And, as shown by the following graphic, this gap is here to stay for a while.

The red line represents the Benchmark Price while the green line shows the Months of Supply.

As you can see, our prices are rising while our months of supply are very low, indicating that we can expect to see continued price appreciation for some time.

Chart, histogram

Description automatically generated

Speaking of Pricing, I’ll share one very interesting fact for homeowners. As of this month, we mark a $100,000 increase in the benchmark sales price from the beginning of 2021. So, congratulations!! The average Calgary homeowner has added $100K to their overall net worth (without, of course, factoring in any of your household debt changes, etc.)

It’s a very positive sign for Alberta. With increased equity in our homes come so many positive things for economic growth in our region.  

Table

Description automatically generated with medium confidence

And that’s all for this month!

If you require any market information relating to your specific situation, please don’t hesitate to let us know so a market specialist at Redline can be connected with you!

Round & around we go! I’m here to report that March was another record-breaking month in Calgary & Area real estate! 

Two months in a row now we’ve broken the all-time record for sales in that month!

As you can see on the following graph, sales are in a completely different stratosphere than we are accustomed to. For reference, in our prior peak of March 2014 – for those that remember those years, it felt busy at the time – we sold 1,500 more homes this March than during the same period back then. That’s 50 more homes a day! It’s truly hard to believe. 

Chart

Description automatically generated

Sales continue but – I may sound like a broken record – but we are listing a whole whack of homes on the market, too. You can see we are consistently outpacing our typical listing count by about 25%! 

Chart

Description automatically generated

But…  Yes, there is a BUT. A big one.

Despite record new listings, we are still near record low total “homes on the market” to look at. 

It’s this dynamic that continues in our market and continues to have us nestled way into a sellers’ market! 

Chart

Description automatically generated

When we are in a sellers’ market we see that the “Months of Supply” is very low.  This describes how – if we didn’t list another house on the market – how long would it take to sell through everything on the market. 

Our city-wide Months of Supply number is 1. Just 1 month and –POOF! – all homes would be sold, period.

You can see that the Months of Supply numbers vary across the types of home and the areas of the city, but everywhere we are in a sellers’ market. Now, even our apartment market sits comfortably in one, where just a few months ago it was balanced, and before that for over a decade it was a strong buyers’ market. 

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

Calgary’s satellite markets are also seeing extremely low months of supply. For instance:

Airdrie – 0.7 Months of Supply

Cochrane – 0.55

Okotoks – 0.88

And it continues like that around all the counties, too! 

And you’ve likely guessed it… with all of these things going on, our pricing is experiencing tremendous positive gains. 

Calgary Proper has seen 17% year-over-year price growth, now up to a benchmark average of $518,000! 

We had 20% growth to $620k in our Detached market, 16% in our Semi-Detached market, 16% in our Row homes, and even now 6% in our Apartments! It’s happening everywhere. 

And it’s happening across all regions, as well. In many communities the price growth is even stronger than Calgary’s, such as the 33% improvement in Airdrie & Canmore and 26% in Cochrane.

Diagram

Description automatically generated

And we are seeing this mostly in the last 3-ish months, as displayed in the following graph.  We are in true “hockey stick” mode right now, shooting upwards. 

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

People may be thinking that this is just a “one-time” uptick, but this is certainly not the case in our region. 

As Months of Supply has changed over the last 5 years to get to this point, we are now experiencing the “crux” of the re-direction upwards. 

When this happens, it is not a temporary thing – especially not in the way we got here. We got here through a long-term transition of our market as we slowly emerged out of the depths of a long-stagnant era for Alberta real estate. 

Chart, histogram

Description automatically generated

And it’s also happening across all price ranges. You can see in this chart that all the red bars – representing 2022 – are drastically higher than all the other preceding years, and across every price range.

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

So, in Summary… 

No matter which local market you are living in, and whether you are planning to buy or sell, you are in one of the hottest sellers’ markets we’ve ever experienced. 

And, as we push towards spring, which is our main selling season, all indicators are pointing to it continuing to be as busy as ever. 

So, buckle up, and if you are trying to get into the market, DO IT, as prices are climbing every month and I foresee a month-over-month increase for the next 2-3 years at the very least. March over February, alone, saw prices grow by 4%.

If you need advice on your specific situation, please reach out so we can connect you to one of Calgary’s top-selling Redline realtors, so you know you have an agent that truly understands this dynamic market.

Calgary just recorded the best-selling February of all time! But the question remains, are we in this for the long haul?                                       

Our real estate board reported “Sales continue to surge as listings rise”, so let me take some time to make sense of this for you, plus give you my advice on what to do with it.  

Yep, once again we’ve marked another notch in the record books. We just outsold the best February of all time – not just by a little – but by a whopping 25%!

We saw this by significant contributions across all property types – single family, semi-detached, apartments & row. And we saw this across pretty much all price ranges.  

The hottest portion of our market was the $600K to $1 Million segment, but all ships are rising with the tide right now. 

Now, big numbers are great, but they don’t really provide context. As represented by this graph (below) you can see how far ahead we truly are. We are truly a “unicorn” in comparison to our recent history here in Greater Calgary. 

Chart

Description automatically generated

Now, at the same time as our new high has been recorded in the history books, our active inventory remains near all-time lows. Meaning, while we have the most demand to buy houses, those buyers have a very small amount of selection to draw from. 

Chart

Description automatically generated

But the reduction in properties available to buy is not as extreme as the increase of buyer demand.

One of the reasons for that is Greater Calgarians have heard the call, and we are continuing to put historically high amounts of homes on the market – so far well surpassing year-to-date figures over the last 10 years. 

But year-to-date Sales continue to have the upper hand.

And it’s for this reason that, so far in 2022 (and specifically in February) we saw prices rise significantly. 

Our benchmark sales price has increased by $36,000 so far this year, and $27,000 of that was experienced in the month of February! That’s a 6% increase month-over-month. Another “wow” moment for all of us to take note of. 

As impressive as that is, it’s being led by our Detached market, which has seen a nearly $50,000 benchmark price increase this year alone. But increases are being seeing in all markets:

Detached – 19% year-over-year improvement 

Apartment – up 4.5%

Semi-Detached – up 16%

Rowhouses – up 13%

Our Satellite Communities are also shining bright:

Airdrie – up 20% year-over-year

Cochrane – up 20%

Okotoks – up 14%

And these double-digit increases are being seen around nearly all counties, as well. But please consult with a local expert to dial right into your specific scenario.

To me, we’ve hit the perfect storm so far in 2022.

We have seen an unprecedented increase in buyer demand for this time of the year, that has come on the scene before we’ve even come up to full speed with the major part of our listings for the spring.

So, the market’s been super, super tight. Our Days on Market is 25, way down from 45 one year ago, and our Months of Supply is down all the way to 1.1, again down from 2.5 at this time one year ago. 

But we are building inventory – we have over 1,000 more homes on the market now than just 28 days ago. 

So, I predict that as we transition into the true spring market, things will remain very well into “seller’s market” territory, though we may not see the same number of “multiple offers”, or the same number of “Sold in 1 day with no conditions” situations, or even the same number of showings per property as we have seen so far in 2022. 

This would be good news for everyone, and certainly would helps buyers trying to get into the market. And it would allow us to keep a nice controlled growth in our housing sector rather than one teasing the word “bubble”.

Now, what is my advice for you? 

I spoke at the Home & Garden Show last weekend about this exact topic – please reference our YouTube Channel for that complete 37 minute talk, if you’re interested – but today I’ll give you the “Coles Notes” as it applies to us here…

Point 1

This market is here to stay, and here to stay for a long time. 

This graph may seem like a lot, but what it’s telling us is one thing – Calgary is too cheap right now. 

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

In relation to all other Canadian Metro Cities, our Housing Price Index is extremely low.  This means that for our income here in Calgary, the cost of our housing is the lowest of all major cities. 

This was the case back in 2005.  And it’s why we essentially doubled our house prices in 3 short years to catch up to the rest of Canada.

Due to our market dropping for the better part of 7 years, while the rest of Canada rose, we are again too cheap. We have nowhere to go but up. 

As you can see by this graph, the gap between us at the bottom and the rest of Canada is significant, and it’s going to take years & years to get somewhere close. Calgary has way too much going for it with our constantly diversifying economy, with our quality of life, our proximity to the mountains, and our currently strong oil & gas economy to stay this far behind our peers. 

Chart, line chart

Description automatically generated

So, this gap will close.  Which means we will continue to see positive increases in our housing values, we will continue to see buyer demand from our own, from those moving here from other provinces, and others internationally. There is absolutely no doubt. 

It won’t happen all now, it won’t all happen this year, it won’t all happen in a few years… but we as Albertans, and more specifically Calgarians, will be seeing positivity for a while. 

So, if you need to buy, buy now and ride this up knowing you’ll continue to benefit. 

If you need to sell, or are considering it, sell but stay in the market so you don’t lose buying power as the market appreciates. 

If you want to invest, invest now, cause it’s only getting more expensive and will never be this cheap again. 

If you don’t want to do any of the above, then don’t… and sit back and smile while your net worth grows faster from your housing than the increase in our current Canadian inflation & much better than your stock performance 🙂 

Now if you are sitting back and want to access your equity, get a home equity line of credit, or re-finance. It’s a great time to sit down with your favorite lender, too.  It’ll be a great time to pull the most money out if you do, indeed, need it. 

Again, if you want to hear more about this, refer to the upcoming release on our YouTube channel of my 30 minute talk, or book a meeting with one of us at Redline to chart the path forward for your unique scenario. 

It’s my hope that this information provided you with what you need to know about the present state of our market, but also gave you confidence that, yes, we are in this for the long haul, and real estate in Greater Calgary is a very, very safe place to be!   If you need help finding a truly educated & reliable agent don’t hesitate to contact us a Redline Real Broker to be connected with a real estate professional in your market segment.

The headline from our real estate board was this… 

Sellers’ market conditions continue to impact prices

So, what does this mean anyways? It means that our current real estate market in metro Calgary & the surrounding areas is tilted in the favour of the homeowner (sellers).  

When a real estate market is this way, home prices are on the rise & buyers are required to adhere to the wishes of the seller. The idea of getting big discounts or great undervalued property doesn’t really exist in a seller’s market scenario like we have now. 

In this update I want to explain a couple of key elements rather than hitting you with a bunch of market data. 

Item #1

Our current market is paralleling one of the best market scenarios in Calgary’s real estate history – the run up of 2005-2007. 

Many of you may remember those years when, within a 3 year period, we basically doubled our average benchmark price. 

Alberta Real Estate was insanely affordable in relation to our high household incomes, and it was only a matter of time before things were corrected. We grew about 20% year-over-year, then 30% and then finally 40%.  

I bring this up because it’s the last time we saw sales values consistently – like we are having right now – coupled with very low total active homes on the market. 

The 2012-2014 run-up, you may remember, did not have sales figures as high and as consistent as we’ve been having recently, and it did not have nearly as low a number of homes on the market as we have now.

Those years had us, year-over-year, increasing our sale price by 8,10 and12% respectively… so, more of a modest growth. 

The paralleling of our market with the 2005-2007 period also relates to our benchmark sale price. As I mentioned, we were so low back then that there was nowhere to go but up.

Calgary over the last 6-7 years has been on a decline in relation to the rest of the developed world. While we suffered from oil price issues, political issues, pipeline issues and so on, the rest of the world didn’t. The world continued to see year-over-year positive growth in its housing sector.

So, again, for a powerful market centre like Alberta, we find ourselves with very inexpensive housing.

As the world emerges from Covid, as our economy diversifies, and our oil sector remains in incredibly strong demand, we are positioned to go through another run up. Will it be like 2005-2007 or more like 2012-2014? Nobody knows, but the parallels are obvious and all signs are looking positive for a good while. 

Item #2

Should we be concerned about the Alberta real estate market – including Calgary and surrounding areas – being in “real estate bubble” territory like some in Canada are discussing?

I don’t think so, and this is why… 

There is a difference between “busy, yet healthy” & “dangerously overheated”.  From our recent data here are a few things to consider:

1. Our active number of homes on the market is low, yes, but we are still listing a historically high number of homes on the market. 

Chart

Description automatically generated

In January this year we listed about 10% more homes than last January.

In 2021 we listed more homes than 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and I could go on…

Chart

Description automatically generated

The growth we’ve had recently in our benchmark sale price is really a product of well balanced positive demand, not due to over inflated sale prices cause there is nothing to buy (like we are seeing in GTA, and the GVA). 

2. The market, as a whole, tells the full tale – not jthe headlines. 

You’ll hear from Realtors, you’ll hear from news outlets, and you’ll hear from your neighbours of price records being shattered, $100k over list price results, and so on… 

So, it’s to be expected that the overall Calgary & area market narrative could become embellished and, thus, slightly incorrect. 

Pulling some math of my own, I looked into a few extra data points to paint you the full picture and to show the true “heat map” of our market. 

Pulling up graph #1 of 2, you’ll see a chart comparing “Sales to List Price vs. the Price Ranges”…

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

What do you notice? You will see that as we crept up to $450k through to about 850k that the Sales-to-List-Price Ratio is averaging around 100% to a maximum of 103%. 

What this means, in layman’s terms, is that, for properties prices between $450,000 and almost $900,000, sellers are basically getting what they are asking.

Below $450K, it starts to decline to about 96-98% of what they are asking, and then the same occurs as we go up to $1.25 Mil & above. 

So, yes, the market is “healthy” and sellers are basically getting what their advisors are suggesting is fair value.

We aren’t seeing, on average, that prices are being pushed 20% above list, 50% above, or anything more.  There are exceptions, sure, but this is NOT the norm.  

Will some very aggressive buyers pay too much right now to get the home they want or need? Yes, for sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s driving all housing prices to a place of over-inflation. 

This next graph shows Price Ranges vs Days on Market…

Chart, bar chart

Description automatically generated

You will have heard that homes are selling in a day, or their first day on market, or with no conditions. And yes, there are some like this. But, again, they are the exception rather than the rule. 

Homes under $400K – there are lots of condos and townhouses in those price ranges – are still seeing Days-on-Market averages of 50+.

Homes above $1 Million – same thing. 

But the middle part of the market is moving fast, with an average Days-on-Market under 30. But that still means that not everybody is getting those unconditional deals on Day 1!


And my final point to this relates to something I comment on a lot – the “Sales to New Listing Ratios”.

I often use the word PACE when discussing this topic.  

The ratio for all of the Calgary Real Estate Board region so far in 2022 is 80%. That means that 80% of the new listings turned into sales within the month.

Again, not 100% or 200%.  

The higher the number over 100% means the more the market is swallowing up all available homes. This is not the case with us at all.  It’s healthy again, but not dangerous. We are not selling through everything that hits the market. 

So, with these 3 points in mind, the answer to my question of “Should we be concerned about Calgary & area being in ‘bubble’ territory?” is simply “No”. 

Our market is very healthy, and despite it feeling rushed and maybe a little out of control, it’s a great market! And it’s one that most of Canada would rather be in, I promise you that. 

So, in summary…  

The market is acting differently everywhere – each district of our city, each satellite community and each rural county, each property type, and each price range. You need to have a detailed conversation with your local real estate advisor to be sure you are in full understanding of how our current market applies to your specific situation.  If you need help finding a truly educated and reliable agent, don’t hesitate to contact us a Redline | Real Broker to be connected with a real estate professional in your market segment. 

My Marketing Director asked me the theme of this months’ update, and I told him this…

“There is no end in sight!”

This month can be summarized into a pretty short & sweet, yet powerful, message for all Greater Calgarians…

Last month was the absolute best December on record! 

The previous high-water mark was way back in 2006, but there’s been no December in the last 14 years that has come remotely close to the sales we experienced this past month.

We finished 2021 with one of the lowest-ever Active Inventory levels
to close out a calendar year.

And we just hit the highest Benchmark Sales Price of the year
in the depths of a bitter cold Christmas season!

And, as a result of all this, we are seeing one of the strongest real estate markets we’ve ever seen to start a new year.

As you know, Calgary’s history is full of boom & bust cycles and, after a long slide and then a massive resurgence in our market last year, we have set the stage for what will be a wild 2022.

A couple things of note:

Each property type is acting differently.  But, as you’ll see on the following graph, the detached market is our strongest. My latest calculations have the Months of Supply in this category to be about 0.8 months. That means that if we didn’t list any new homes, it would take about 3 weeks to sell through everything on the market. That’s fast!

The only property type not in a sellers’ market is the apartment market. It went from a buyers’ market in 2021 and now is in balance (which is still a good thing).

Positive signs are being seen across all price ranges.

There isn’t a price band that isn’t experiencing this positive sellers’ market.
Also, a great thing.

And it’s happening everywhere – across Calgary’s 8 districts and our rural satellite regions.

There’s positivity everywhere and, when looking closely, some of those satellite communities are experiencing stronger market conditions than Calgary is, so you’ll need somebody that knows their local stuff to give you the best advice in 2022!

 So, in Summary, here’s is my take on things:

There is absolutely no doubt about it, Buyers will need to be sharp! 

Every single reasonably-priced home will see a great deal of interest upon launch. So, have your pre-approval locked & loaded (and not some online-only thing with a bank – get with a broker who can act quickly for you.)

If you’ve had any thoughts of selling, this is your year! 

Maybe you’ve been wanting to finally get some money out of that investment property, or you’ve been wanting to maximize the price on your renovation. This is your year! There is absolutely no telling what will happen in the years to come, but the perfect storm exists right now to do very, very well on your sale price. Not inflated, mind you, but really, really good!

In 2022 you’ll need the help of somebody who really knows what they are doing! 

This year will be a “tale of two realtors” – agents who know what they are doing and can properly support their clients to maximize this market, and agents who simply don’t understand this exceptional and fast-changing market and let their clients down. So, pick wisely in order to win in 2022.

If you want to have a consult with one of our experts at Redline | Real Broker, please reach out and we will connect you with a specialist.

We’ve just come off our best year ever and our agents are selling at top-of-the-industry rates!

Calgary Real Estate Market Update – December 2021

Shocker!! We had another great month in Calgary & Area Real Estate. 

Consistency is the word of the day right now.  Ever since July Calgary has been seeing monthly sales numbers of over 2,100. This is unprecedented. 

As realtors, we always talk about the seasonal trends that occur and, as a result, advise our clients around them. 

This year it’s been different. There has yet to be a cooling off period in our real estate market. 

The Sales Summary

We just hit 2,110 sales, That’s the 2nd highest November sales total ever recorded in the city’s history. The only year that was better was way back in 2005. 

Here is a 15-year trended sales graph. This November’s numbers were far higher than anything we’ve seen in our recent past. 

To put this in a little more context, when comparing to last year our last 7 months of sales have outpaced the entire year of sales for 2020!

It’s simply nutty. 

This is occurring across all price ranges and all property types, and literally all districts and satellite markets around Calgary, too. 

And, when we look closer at the numbers, the biggest uptick is in the household prices average above the benchmark average. This year a large bulk of sales are happening in the upper price ranges of each individual market. 

So, to wrap up the Sales Summary – nothing seems to be slowing things down. There is some indication that this late year pace is a result of home buyers looking to act prior to “presumed” mortgage rate increases but ,between you and I, this would only be a minor bump, not one that would sustain such a high pace. The powers of work here are much greater than just a small interest rate hike. 

There is simply confidence in our market from Greater Calgarians. There continues to be increased confidence in our market from Canadians outside of Calgary looking for adventure and affordability. And there’s also interest from abroad, as evidenced by the recent ranking by money.co.uk as the top Canadian city to re-locate to.

So, the Sales Summary is all “Thumbs Up” right now.

The Inventory Story

As we would expect, inventory is doing what it’s seasonally supposed to – dropping month-over-month. We currently sit at 3,922 homes on the market, and this is set to drop to near rock bottom levels throughout the month of December. 

Here is the 15 year chart…

This shows a reduction of about 900 homes from 30 days ago.  

Now again, without sounding like a broken record, this reduction is not for the lack of trying by Greater Calgarians. Once again, as you can see by this next graph, we have been listing more homes than any other year in our recent history.

“Consistency” is again the word of the day. There are fewer properties on the market for buyers to look at and for sellers to compete against than there was at this time last year. And that applies to in all property types – it doesn’t matter whether it’s detached, semis, rows, apartments or any of the satellite markets. 

There is not a single market holding more inventory than there was at this time last year. 

And most are seeing drastic reductions of 30%, and even all the way up to 60% less inventory in Cochrane right now. 

The Pricing Picture

iWith supply & demand doing what it’s been doing, we can expect only one thing – good news for home values. 

The following graph shows blue bars to indicate Total Inventory and green bars for Sales… 

When supply comes down, as it’s showing, and sales remain flat, the only option is for prices to hold. Or, in our case, prices have kept going up even though it’s supposed to be the mid-winter price slump time in our market. 

This month we finished again by hitting a new high for benchmark prices in 2021!

Prices are up everywhere and in every property type and price range. 

The following graphic shows the City Centre district of our city sitting at a year-over-year price gain of 3.4% while every other distinct was up 8% or more.

On the rural chart you’ll see something similar. Except those year-over-year prices gains range from 5% all the way up to 17% in Strathmore. Damn!

It could not be a better scenario for the Greater Calgary real estate market than the one we are writing right now. It’s all smiles…so, yes, smile with me!!

The Summary

The question comes to mind of “How low will we go?”

And I’m thinking about this in terms of our active inventory. We’ve had a great year, yes. We’ve shaken off all the rust that our market had built up since 2014, but we have not experienced the “ultra low inventory” and insane bidding wars seen in many other hot markets of Canada, like the GTA and Greater Vancouver. 

But, if the total number of homes remains low, and goes lower, we do run a little risk of getting some hyper price growth like our Canadian counterparts. And as sexy as that may sound for home owners, it’s not healthy. Those markets will experience some pain in the coming years.

On this graph I’ve placed arrows at the points where our inventory sat at the end of the past 5 calendar years. 

This last graph represents Months of Supply. The lower the bar graph, the faster the pace of our market and the more pressure we will have on creating quick increases in prices and a much more competitive scenario.

As you see, we are already very low when in comparison to recent years, with a city-wide average months of supply value below 2 – well into Sellers’ Market territory. 

I have a feeling this is going to remain low and 2022 will continue to see us with more people moving to our markets, more developers buying in our areas and more investors placing their long-term bets on Greater Calgary with the high equity they’ve built in their home markets from years of property value run ups.

So, as we nearly complete one our best years ever, I would like to wave the yellow caution flag to say “This isn’t over yet!” There is more of this hot market to come, so buckle up and be ready! 

I hope this information is helpful. You know all of us at Redline are here for you no matter your home type, location or price range. And, as I mentioned last month, we are now partnered with a North America-wide real estate brokerage that gives us access to a growing network of more than 3,000 agents – so think of us as your one-stop real estate shop!

Do you find yourself looking ahead to what you hope to achieve in 2020? Personally speaking, I do make New Year’s resolutions and I find myself thinking about them over the holiday period before making the commitment to firmly change them. 

As we work our way through life in a crazy time to be a Calgarian, we spread ourselves across our work, our family, our health & our wealth. It can be easy to overlook one of the most influential aspects of our day to day life:  The house we live in.  

We start and end our days at home.  We eat, sleep and be merry in our houses.  The structure of our day depends on where we live and how long it takes us to get around.  The biggest bill we have to pay is usually our mortgage payment. And the most important factor in our net worth is usually the equity position we have in our principle residence.  Our lives are centred around our houses and few things have as much bearing on our overall quality of life.  

Considering a housing change? Here are three things you should evaluate in your current situation first.

Three Things To Evaluate Before Buying A New House

1- Get More Out Of Your Home

Does every room in your house have a purpose? Is it being used? The age-old concept of “highest and best use” in real estate is equally applicable to our own homes. Are we using our properties to their fullest? Do we use our backyards, our garage, our basements & all our bedrooms enough or the right way? Can we add value to our home by creating more utility?  Perhaps a garden, outdoor living space, built-in storage areas or new furniture? Any number of these things might help you get more value out of your own home, and as a Calgary real estate professional, I can tell you that more often then not if it improves your lifestyle it will be more value able to the person who will buy your home from you one day. 

2- Getting Your Home To Work For You

Are we using our home to build wealth for us or just store it in the form of debt paydown? There are many ways to get your house working for you:  If you are fortunate enough to have over 20% equity in your property you can get a line of credit set up quite easily.  The LOC can be used as ultra-cheap debt when you need it – few forms of debt are as cheap as homeowner lines of credit, so if we have things like a car loan, credit card debt, consumer debt or other – it can make sense to use the cheap LOC debt to pay off these loans so that we pay less interest which means more of our money goes towards building our net worth.  You can also use your equity to invest – either in real estate or in something else – and the interest expense on your LOC would be tax-deductible in this case.   

3 – Is Your Home Right For The Long-Term?

Lastly – is your house right for you for the long haul? One of the things we know about real estate consumers is they often ask themselves this question over the holidays.  Would an easier commute buy you more time in your life?  Is there enough room to have children and watch them grow up?  Is your house bigger than you need & could you have a better overall quality of life for less?  We need to ask ourselves these questions from time to time, and the holidays are one of the best opportunities for this as we generally spend a bit more time around the house to be able to observe ourselves a little more.  

If any of the above are resonating with you, but you feel you need help, well hey that’s what your Redline Realtor is for. It’s part of our service culture to go beyond showing and selling to help our clients make the most of the properties they’re in. So if you are asking yourself questions and need help finding the answers don’t hesitate to contact your Redliner for help or advice. Contact us today on 403.407.1900.