Prices Surge in Calgary!
It’s provincial election time here in Alberta and the question I’ve been asked is: Will the steam of our real estate market cool as we all get distracted by the party tactics & antics? Only time will tell, but my gut says… I think not.
Yup, if you’ve left your house in the last few days you can’t help but notice the onslaught of campaign signs, radio ads, billboards, or even the pesky podcast ads, social media takeovers & tv campaigns – it’s everywhere!
No matter where you find yourself on the political spectrum, this is a month where politics will take over in Alberta. But before it does, let’s analyze what you need to know about our most recent Calgary & Area real estate data.
Last month the key part of my update spoke to something near & dear to Calgarians’ hearts –our house equity & the actual value of our homes. Do you remember this graph?
Yes, this upward trajectory of our housing prices simply stole the show!
But yikes! That graph is pretty inclined isn’t it? Could we really continue that sort of climb amidst all the craziness still out there?
Things like the national composite MLS price graph showing a 15.5% decline since last year…
Or things like the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and worries of more to come…
Or the emergence of coalitions on the other side of the world with China, Russia & others…
THE PRICING PICTURE
With so much going on it seems fitting enough that I should just start with Prices. So, let’s take a look at this month’s pricing graph…
What do you notice? Any signs of falling prices or even a change of trajectory?
Nope, not at all. That chart is still climbing, isn’t it?
But what else do you notice?
Yes, when you look closely, you’ll see that the entire ‘total sale price’ for Calgary is now even higher than our best month of the 2022 peak. That was the peak we hit during what I called our “Unicorn Year” of 2022, so maybe unicorns do come along more than once. 🙂
So, yes, we are now fully into ‘new record price territory’! Congratulations to everyone – you’ve never had more equity in your homes than you do today!
Today our average sale price sits at $550,800!
Speaking specifically about Detached homes, they are now up to $661,900 – another new high and a 2.4% increase year-over-year.
Semi-Detached up now to $593,200, another 2.3% increase.
Row Homes are up to $387,400, up 7.4%
And Apartments are up to $299,400, a full 10.2% increase year-over-year!
And this all sums up to about a 2-3% increase across the board month-over-month. Really, really great news for homeowners!!
The Calgary market remains one with tremendous energy & momentum!
So, will this continue? To provide my opinion on this, let’s look at a few additional things…
First, let’s discuss where we sit in terms of the total homes we have on the market.
THE INVENTORY STORY
Look at the far right end of this graph and you’ll see how few homes we have on the market in comparison to the same time in our most recent years.
Now, let’s flip to March’s graph so you can look at it, too. Look at the steady ‘stair like’ decline year-over-year.
Okay, let’s flip back again to April…
This is ‘All Time Low’ territory for the last 15 years. Honestly, it’s not even close. This is a rock bottom amount of homes to have available to buy at this point in the year.
What’s really different is that we are falling further away from those historical numbers so quickly! The step decline from last year to this year is much more severe than the ‘’stair-like’ decline I showed earlier.
But is it that Calgarians aren’t listing homes nearly as much in the past? Is that why our inventory is so low?
The far right bar is year-to-date new listings. It’s pretty much in line with most of this chart, right? So, a lack of new listings really isn’t the problem, is it?
What we need to take into account is the demand side of the equation, meaning the number of people currently looking to purchase homes. When you couple the active # of homes on the market with the fact that there isn’t an increase of ‘new homes’ coming to the market, you get this…
With the sales volume shown here, which still remains well above the 15 year average, the number of homes coming onto the market simply aren’t enough to keep up with demand.
And this situation has resulted in April ending with fewer homes on the market than it started with. Honestly, I don’t think this has ever happened in our history. April through June are months where we always climb, climb, climb… But not now. We actually saw absolutely zero growth, which is pretty crazy.
Not only did our inventory stay flat, but our Months of Supply actually dropped, meaning how quickly would we sell through everything at our current sales pace if nothing new was listed on the market.
We had 1.33 months of supply in March, which dropped to 1.2 at the end of April (making it a tighter, more seller-focused market). And when we compare to the ‘unicorn year’ of 2022, when it felt like the market was moving at a blistering pace, the Months of Supply was 1.43. So, we’re now 16% faster than that crazy time – Wow!
Here is the overall graph for true context…
As quick as 1.2 Months of Supply is overall, the Detached segment is at 1.12, Semi’s are at 1.21, Row Homes are at 0.95, and Apartments are slowest but still firing at 1.49!
So, in summary, where do we go from here?
Well, friends, Calgary continues to be the draw for a huge amount of Canada (including other parts of Alberta) for affordability, for jobs, for quality of life, for investment, for its growing diversity of people, arts, industry demographics, and so much more.
This broken record will continue for years & years to come…
And here is the kicker as Calgarians continue to build their prosperity in the coming years, as home values continue to rise, and our investments grow, grow, grow…
We will continue to be a ‘go to’ destination to get ahead in life!
Not only has the world woken up to us, but Calgarians have re-awakened to the potential in our own backyard! Together, this is a powerful force!
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!
