Russian Edmonton Real Estate

The Edmonton area has been blessed with a beautiful fall and the local housing market has followed the weather trend. The fall months always tend to be a quieter market, but this year sales remained strong a little longer than usual. Edmonton Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) total residential average prices remain stable (up 8.5% over last year) thanks in part to an incline in sales of higher priced houses.

The seasonal slide is reflected in the dip in single family sales, down 12% from last month at 850 sold (918 adjusted).  While still up almost 8% from last year, single family prices dipped down from $436,870 in September to $426,848 in October, a difference of 2.3%.

With an average price of $260,491, condos actually gained a bit of momentum going up 2.6% month-over-month and 9.75% year-over-year. Duplex/row house prices were also up month-over-month at $352,907.

In October, 2,049 residential properties were listed which is up 18.6% from last year. 1,412 were reported sold (1,525 adjusted) in the Edmonton CMA. Total days on market for all residential properties were down 3 days over October of 2013.

The demand for single family homes in the $350,000 to $400,000 remains high with 185 properties selling in this range in October. However, inventory is tight at the $350,000 to $400,000 mark with only 227 available properties available as of October 31. We have seen a lot of action this year in houses under $400,000. People may need to adjust their expectations when looking at houses in this range. There is a big demand for properties at this price point and with a light inventory, you may need to wait a bit longer to find the right house for you.

Another “hot” market is houses priced over a million dollars. We have seen this trend throughout 2014. Almost 2% of the single family dwellings sold last month were over a million dollars. Compare that to last October where less than one quarter of 1% of the sales were over a million. 125 million dollar plus homes have sold in 2014 compared to 94 at this same time last year and 75 in 2012.

The housing market in the Edmonton is poised for a very active spring sales period. Sales of all types of residential properties in the first quarter in the Edmonton were up 5.8% as compared to the same period in 2013. Single family detached (SFD) sales were up 5.1% while condo sales rose a staggering 11.0% in the first quarter.

We expect that sales will increase from month-to-month as we approach the second quarter. But this year-over-year increase is an indicator of the high demand for housing in this market. Price rises will follow the demand and we can expect active competition for desirable properties.

There were 3,679 all-residential sales from January to March 2014 compared to 3,478 sales in 2013. SFD sales rose from 2,099 to 2,206 while condo sales in the first quarter jumped from 996 to 1,106. Listings also rose to fill the demand. There were 6,324 residential properties listed so far this year compared to 6,086 last year; an increase of 3.9%. Listings of SFDs rose 5.5% Y/Y while condo listings dipped by half of one percent. The overall sales-to-listing ratio in the first quarter was 58% compared to 57% last year. which means that 5.8 houses out of 10 are selling.

Despite the increase in Y/Y listings the available inventory at the end of March was down 6.9% at 4,413 residential properties as compared to March 2013. The turn-around time on sales reflected the busy marketplace with average days-on-market in March at 44 days; down from 51 in March 2013.

Strong sales indicate consumer confidence in the Edmonton marketplace, The high condo sales and low condo listings indicate the demand for lower priced properties and first time buyers are choosing condos as an option to lower-priced SFDs which are in high demand and short supply.  REALTOR® figures do not include the sale of many new homes and condos which are sold directly by builders and not through the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®).

Overall, month-over-month average sale prices were stable. The all-residential price moved down less than half of one percent from $363,281 to $361,870. SFD average prices were also down fractionally from $433,205 to $432,458 and condos saw price increases of 3.6% from $238,376 to $247,005 on average. Duplex/row house prices were down from $338,024 in February to $331,038 in March.