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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 .
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That’s the forecast contained in the House Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast released Thursday by Royal LePage Real Estate Services. . M3 }- x$ z$ T2 y1 {- C
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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. , S! S2 s% @' j
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“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.
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2 {9 X; f% a- t1 \4 i" C- G, cBut Alberta’s two biggest cities still boast some of the most expensive real estate in the country, it noted. - u! ^ C3 V' u! h4 p% H
: y c, }6 T+ S/ G# y" ]( G“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.” 8 @* ?& d) P: U3 T$ G
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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. 8 N# o# M+ Q) F- t2 i7 O9 N, C( ^
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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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- H8 R6 R; j, x) u8 V! HAn average condominium in Edmonton was priced at $226,000, down 14.2 per cent from $263,333 in the comparable 2007 period. / ^0 V4 P/ K* t. D
; g: U* o* y/ E“A surge in inventory caused Alberta’s white-hot market to record the country’s only major-market price decreases,” the report said. / Y" h) J& g( ~
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Across most of the country, average house prices rose, but more slowly than the spikes seen in 2006 and 2007. + _4 G1 a* x7 `
, V8 Y* U( _( Y! C. }7 @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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) i, @# k% h4 C7 \' O0 Z9 aThe 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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