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EDMONTON – By the end of the year, Edmonton could get something it hasn’t seen for several years — a “normalized” housing market — as homes for sale dry up and prices drop . $ [* Q, I! F* o1 V& q/ O
: r0 E" R* j: u' FThat’s the forecast contained in the House Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast released Thursday by Royal LePage Real Estate Services.
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A soaring number of homes put on the market especially by builders and speculators in the last year softened the city’s housing market during the second quarter, the report said.
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$ O3 a% j& i* o8 d- S( ?“The high inventory levels will dwindle into the second half of the year, and as affordability improves, subsequent market conditions will continue to normalize,” the report said.
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As of the end of Wednesday, there were 11,184 homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, according to the Realtors’ Association of Edmonton. 0 L7 H/ O9 H% O# r% G
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But Alberta’s two biggest cities still boast some of the most expensive real estate in the country, it noted.
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( b) F) N2 u6 a v“Despite some mild price erosion during the second quarter in both Calgary and Edmonton, these markets remain strong. Although prices have come down from where they were last year — one of the best years on record — current house prices are far higher than they were three years ago before energy-rich Alberta experienced its boom.”
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; v# \6 t% H& U+ Q: E: \The average price for a detached bungalow in Edmonton in April, May and June was $320,000, down about 14.5 per cent from the same period in 2007 ($374,143), Royal LePage said in its survey of Canadian house prices. A" I$ W7 A( C9 C; s1 W
) H' [! [% |; o) S1 o' S8 \In the second quarter of 2008, a two-storey house in Edmonton sold for an average price of $348,571, down 12.4 per cent year-over-year from $397,857.
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7 M: y6 ~3 n ~An average condominium in Edmonton was priced at $226,000, down 14.2 per cent from $263,333 in the comparable 2007 period. ; ?7 U" E) W s* w( L) ~: G
$ k: F1 Q* ~/ S“A surge in inventory caused Alberta’s white-hot market to record the country’s only major-market price decreases,” the report said. ; ~1 t* E8 I7 M# m
2 L# g) Y* i8 a4 r9 J: [Across most of the country, average house prices rose, but more slowly than the spikes seen in 2006 and 2007. 9 Y U. a; z0 `$ Q% U8 {- `$ h# E
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Royal LePage forecasts the national average house price to rise by 3.5 per cent, to $318,000 by year’s end.
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The report predicts home sale transactions to decrease by 11.5 per cent to 461,000 unit sales by year’s end. |
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