Pete: Hey, it’s Pete de Jong with Remax and I’m here with Kate.
Kate: Hi.
Pete: And we’re gonna talk to you about.. That was week…
Kate: Hi. Sorry.
Pete: We’ll do it again.
Kate: Hey
Pete: Hey! Maybe I’m too aggressive. Hey, it’s Pete de Jong. Hey, it’s Pete de Jong here with Remax Professionals and I’m here with Kate.
Kate: Hi!
Pete: And we’re gonna be talking to you about what happened in real estate in Calgary in April of 2023.
In short, really, here’s what happened. Sales are down 20%, inventory’s down 30%. That’s the whole story. But hang on a second. We’ll give you the details.
Do the jingle.
Kate: Is that our jiggle?
Pete: Anyways. Okay, so here’s what’s going on. In terms of sales sales, like I said, they’re down 20% overall. Listings down 30%. Down 30%. Yep. And that’s really, I mean, inventory was low last year. Now it’s even lower. So I think last year, like so this year we’re down 33%. 33 or 34%. Yeah.
From last year. But like long term trends we’re actually down, like. 45% cuz last year was low inventory. Wow. And so we’re down 45% from sort of the long term trends in terms of what we normally have . In April. So it’s kind of interesting cause people ask us all the time, right. Like, how’s the market?
Like it’s, you know, if you’re a list estate agent, it’s what everybody asks you. Yeah. And which is fine. It’s not really that
Kate: Sometimes I just wanna be asked, how are you? Doing? Yeah, I’m doing okay.
Pete: How are you doing, Kate?
Kate: I’m doing good.
Pete: Of course you’re doing good. He just came back from another holiday, which is what you do.
Where were you this time? LA? Las Vegas?
Kate: Las Vegas. For a wedding, I had to be there. Had to be there. Yeah. And then LA and then Los Angeles. Yeah. Los Angeles.
Pete: Yeah. Well, nice to have you back.
Kate: Thanks. Until next week.
Pete: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I’m sure you won’t be around long if anyone’s wondering.
Katelyn’s actually not Filipino. This is just a tan. Never far enough away from the sun to actually have the tan disappear. But yeah. I’m sorry. I’m actually Pete’s. I look like this whiteness. That whiteness, yeah. Caucasian. Caucasian is exactly, you know, what’s real estate like? You know, sales are down and they’re down significantly, like, like a 20% drop in sales is significant, but it’s all a reflection of there’s just nothing for sale.
So we’ve got lots of people that wanna buy real estate, and especially in some market segments, right? Yes. Like anything under 600, and then once you get under five, under four, it even, you know, it, it just sort of exasperates, or what’s the word?
Kate: Increases?
Pete: Yeah, it, well, it increases the problem, whatever, of just not being able to find anything because yeah, if you’ve got something decent for sale for under 500,000, there’s five or six or 15 people that want to buy it, so that’s why, you know, when you’re hearing about multiple offers and that kind of stuff, it’s especially in the under $600,000 market where you’re, where you’re seeing it. So yeah, we’re seeing a month supply now. Like I remember seeing six month supply, I remember at one time an 18 month supply in downtown condos in the BeltLine.
Two bedroom condos in concrete buildings. Wow. 18 month supply. Anyways, right now, overall, of course, this is like 1.2 month supply. Yeah, so it’s like one month and a week. Yeah.
Kate: Not even a month and a half. Just one month. One month and one week.
Pete: And one week, yeah. If we stop listing homes in just over a month, there’d be nothing for sale.
Like, so it’s crazy. It’s, it is nuts. And that’s why even though sales are down 20%, you’re seeing prices increase. Yeah. And again, that’s especially in the in the starter home price range. But in, in total, what’s our total residential?
Kate: Well, our total residential actually went up 1.2% compared to last year’s.
Pete: In sale price?
Kate: Yes. In sale price, exactly. In sale price, it went up 1.2%, so that’s around $550,000.
Pete: $550,000 bucks is our, I don’t think that’s our average. I think that’s our benchmark price.
Kate: Bench mark price. Yes. I think Exactly.
Pete: Yeah. Total detached market is up two and a half percent from April of last year.
And so they’re seeing a absorption rate of about 88%, which is just stupid. And we’ve got just over a month supply of the detached market.
Kate: Yeah. And then let’s look at our semi-detached prices. So that would be considered. Sorry, our semi-detached prices, that would be 2.3% up from last year, so that’s around $593,000.
Pete: Yeah, about the same as the detached, right? Yes. The detached and semi-detached, they’re both up in terms of price, you know, roughly about two and a 5% and that kind of thing? They’re both, and they’re at like 88/ 89% in terms of absorption rate. They’re both at about a month and or month and a week.
In terms of month supply where it gets interesting rowhouses are starting to get a little more interesting. They’re at a 95% absorption rate. In other words, if you had a townhouse for sale last month, there was a 95% chance you sold it. Mm-hmm. And so those, and this, and in terms of sale price, it’s a reflection there too.
They’re up seven and a half percent, which is significant. And they got about a month, once or a yeah, they have about a one month supply. And then what about apartments?
Kate: Apartments are also up. From their prices last year at 10%. Oh, just a little bit over 10%, 10.2%. And their absorption rate is at 77%.
Pete: Yeah. The apartments, what we saw in apartments is we actually like, I mean, they’re up the highest in price because they had the highest to go as well, and because, Of the price range. A lot of them are in, it’s kind of the most active part of the market. Yeah. But what we saw with apartments, we actually saw a lot of listings come on and stuff like that too, so.
So the absorption rate is not as high, but that’s only because it’s the one market segment where we actually saw listings improve. Where in most places we’re seeing less inventory than before.
With anyone watching this video, if you’re listening to the podcast, you know you’re not gonna get this, but if you’re watching the video, what you’re missing is I’ve got my feet firmly planted on. Planet Earth, or at least on the ground, Kate beside me is swinging her feet like a, like a three-year-old on a kitchen chair.
It’s so funny.
Kate: Sorry! Is it distracting?
Pete: I’m just sitting here going, it’s so funny. You’re like, wee!
Kate: Wee, I’m almost, I’m trying, I’m almost to the ground.
Pete: Yeah. No, you’re a foot off. Your feet are a foot off the ground. Mine are on the ground. But anyways, sorry. That’s just funny for me.
In terms of neighborhoods, what are we seeing there? Is there any neighborhoods?
Kate: The neighborhood that’s actually doing the best out of all the districts in Calgary is actually the east. They’re up 5.7% from their benchmark price from last year.
Pete: Yeah. And the east. And again, it all makes sense cuz it’s all like, the story is so perfect. Like, it really all has to do with the lower price range stuff is the stuff that’s the most active, enjoying the highest price growth and everything else. And the east would include places like Forest, lawn, like Dover. Pembroke and places like that. They’re seeing the best price growth like, You know, 5.5%, 5.7% the lowest as it’s been for a long time downtown.
Downtown’s really struggling. And again, there it’s like Upper Mount Royal is what’s suffering not lower Mount Royal. Lower Mount Royal is, is apartments and stuff, and we’re seeing them come up, like we said 10%. So you kind of go, well, how can condos be up 10%? And then downtown be up, you know, less than 1%.
It’s like 0.3%. Yeah. It’s because Upper Mount Royal, where the million dollar homes are, are at, they’re just not selling. Or you know, at least not improving in price and that kind of stuff. Speaking of improving on price, what is, and it’s actually really funny now considering what I just said, but what was the most expensive house to sell in April?
Kate: Oh, okay. So the most expensive house to sell was actually in Upper Mountain World. For 4.75 mil And that was sold …
Pete: Chump Change.
Kate: Yeah, I know, right? Just forever. Yeah. Yeah. Got that in my pocket.
Pete: Yeah. In my petty cash fund.
Kate: That was sold by Donna Ruy.
Pete: Yeah. Way to go, Donna. Almost 5 million home in Upper Mount Royal in this market. That’s good to see. Cheapest one to sell. As usual, and it hasn’t been the case the last couple months cuz there was a bunch there on fourth street that we still, we were looking at. Yeah. But as typical the cheapest places you can buy in Calgary are these little condos in Chinatown. So this one was in Chinatown.
It was an apartment. It sold for $122,000, which is actually like what, 50 or $60,000 up from some of the cheapest ones. Yes. We had in the last few months.
Kate: Yeah. We were looking at. Places that you could still find for under a hundred thousand.
Pete: Yeah. Like 60, 70,000. Yeah. Yeah. So, hey, we’re double that. For the cheapest, but still 122,000. Cheapest place to sell in April in Calgary. And that was sold by Edmond Lee. Yes. So that’s the that’s the highest and lowest sale prices. Yeah. If you wanna know what the prices of your place are. Prices. You certainly have one price, really, right? Yeah. One, maybe it should be a range, but could be, yeah.
Kate: We start with a range and then you kind of work your way to one.
Pete: Yeah, you can, unless you sell it. No, you can’t sell it twice. That wouldn’t make sense. No. Anyways if you wanna know what your place is worth, give us a shout. We’ll get back to you pretty quickly on it. At least we’ll try. And because of course like, like we mentioned, you know, different areas are, are being affected by this rise in interest rates differently.
Some areas are really benefiting from the number of people moving from Calgary. Sorry. Moving to Calgary. Yeah. From Vancouver or Toronto. So e every market segment is a little bit different. Depends on whether you have an apartment or a house. Depends on whether you’re living in the east. Side of Calgary or the West or downtown.
So like, again, if you wanna know what your place is worth let’s do the work on it. And the way we do it is very transparent. We’ll sit down with you and show you the comparables that we’re using to determine the, the value of your price, the value of your place. And of course, if you do decide to sell, it’s always good to chat with us sooner rather than later because we might just be able to add some value to to what you want to do and in terms of your planning. And we can talk to you about all the stuff that we do, you know, in terms of professional photographers and professional stagers and all that stuff that we do cover, by the way, in our that we cover the, the cost of that as well. So, yeah, give us a call anytime.
Kate: Also, I just wanna quickly shout out our Facebook group page. If you guys have any friends or family that’s moving from. I don’t know, BC Ontario, we have a Facebook group called Moving to Alberta, and it’s it’s doing quite well.
We have a cute little community going on, everyone just chatting away and asking a lot of moving trucks, lot of moving, moving companies. But yeah, it’s a really good community.
Pete: So, yeah, and of course we each have our own Facebook accounts or Facebook pages and Instagram and all that crap, so feel free to look us up and say hello.
And of course we have websites and all that stuff too. So petedejong.ca, or thepeteteam.ca. Or 280 keys.com. What’s yours?
Kate: katelynbrecio.ca
Pete: katelynbrecio.ca. Anyways and our phone numbers come up at the end of this video as well, so call us, text us anytime. We’re happy to chat. Take care.
Prices reach new record high
Persistent sellers’ market conditions placed further upward pressure on home prices in April. After four months of persistent gains, the total unadjusted benchmark price reached $550,800, nearly two per cent higher than last month and a new monthly record high for the city.
“While sales activity is performing as expected, the steeper pullback in new listings has ensured that supply levels remain low,” said CREB® Chief Economist Ann-Marie Lurie. “The limited supply choice is causing more buyers to place offers above the list price, contributing to the stronger than expected gains in home prices.”
In April, sales reached 2,690 units compared to the 3,133 new listings. With a sales-to-new-listings ratio of 86 per cent, inventories declined by 34 per cent compared to last year and are over 45 per cent below long-term averages for April.
While sales have eased by 21 per cent compared to last year, the steep decline in supply has caused the months of supply to ease to just over one month. This reflects tighter market conditions than earlier in the year and compared to conditions reported last April.
Detached
New listings have eased across all price ranges in the detached market, with the most significant declines occurring for homes priced below $700,000. The decline in new listings far outpaced the pullback in sales, causing the sale-to-new listings ratio to rise to 88 per cent and the months of supply to fall to just over one month, tighter than both last year and last month.
The persistently tight market conditions have contributed to further price growth. In April, the detached benchmark price reached a new record high at $661,900. Every district except the City Centre reported a new record high price in April. The City Centre is also the only district that reported over two months of supply. With a year-over-year gain of 6 per cent, the most affordable East district reported the largest price gain.
Semi-Detached
With 234 sales and 264 new listings in April, the sales to new listings ratio jumped to 89 per cent. This caused further declines in inventory levels, which are at the lowest April level seen since 2007. As conditions are tighter than last year, it is not a surprise to see further price growth.
The unadjusted benchmark price in April reached and new record high at $593,200, reflecting a two per cent gain over last month’s and last year’s prices. While all districts posted a new record high price this month, the strongest gains occurred in the most affordable North East and East districts.
Row
Row properties faced the tightest market conditions in April, with a sales-to-new-listings ratio of 95 per cent and months of supply under one month. Row sales have eased over last April’s record high, but with 416 sales, activity is still far stronger than long-term trends. Relative affordability has supported the strong demand in this sector. However, the persistently tight market conditions have placed significant pressure on home prices.
After four consecutive monthly gains, the benchmark price reached a new record high of $387,400, over seven per cent higher than last year. Like other areas, the steepest price growth occurred in the most affordable districts of the North East, East and South.
Apartment Condominium
Thanks to a boost in new listings in April, the apartment condominium sector was the only sector to see sales activity rise over last year’s levels. With 953 new listings and 734 sales, inventories did trend up over the previous month but remained below the levels reported last year at this time. With a sales-to-new-listings ratio of 77 per cent and a months of supply of 1.5, conditions are not as tight as other property types in the city. However, this still reflects sellers’ market conditions and has been driving up prices.
As of April, the unadjusted benchmark price reached $299,400, a significant gain over the $277,600 reported at the start of the year and over 10 per cent higher than last April. Following four months of consecutive gains, prices are now just shy of the previous high reported in 2014. While price gains across all districts have not resulted in a new city-wide record, the North, North West and South East reported new highs in April.
REGIONAL MARKET FACTS
Airdrie
While sales in April trended up compared to last month, new listings eased, causing the sale-to-new listings ratio to once again push near 100 per cent, and inventories fell to the lowest April reported since 2007. While conditions are not as tight as last April, with one month of supply, conditions continue to favour the seller.
Limited choice compared to demand contributed to the upward pressure on home prices compared to earlier this year. As of April, the benchmark price reached $502,000, an improvement from the $480,200 reported in January but nearly two per cent below the April 2022 record high of $510,700.
Cochrane
With 114 sales and 116 new listings, April’s sales to new listings ratio rose to 98 per cent. While inventories are still higher than what was reported in the market last year, with nearly all new listings selling, inventories trended down over levels seen earlier in the year. With only 142 units available, the months of supply dropped to just over one month, ensuring the market continued to favour the seller.
Renewed tight market conditions contributed to the third consecutive monthly price gain, and the benchmark price pushed up to $509,600 in April. However, despite the monthly gains, prices remain nearly two per cent below last April, and the peak price of $522,600 reached in June of last year.
Okotoks
Both sales and new listings trended up in April over levels seen earlier in the year, supporting some monthly gains in inventory levels. However, with only 67 units in inventory, levels are 66 per cent below long-term trends for the month and reflect the lowest April since 2006.
With just over one month of supply that has persisted for the past three months, we have seen further upward pressure on home prices in the town. As of April, the unadjusted benchmark price reached $577,300, nearly five per cent higher than last April and a new record high.
Click here to view the full City of Calgary monthly stats package.
Click here to view the full Calgary region monthly stats package.
