Richard Z Realty Calgary

June update Calgary housing market …
The spring market continues to be slow as buyers are being cautious and taking their time. There's generally a drop in new listings across the board and the active listings have also levelled off slightly below this time last year. So with less choices in a balanced market, one could expect activity to be quite slow. This again does not pertain to all the markets. The detached market continues to be resilient to any semblance of a correction and from my observation and experience, the inner city N.W. and S.W. seem to be keeping their high prices and selling. Another point to this is that with the expected changes in zoning back to previous designations, I'm seeing former RC-2 houses selling at an accelerated price and pace.

In general, total sales are down 15.5%, tripling the drop we saw in April from that time last year and easily an indication of a trend. New listings are down nearly 13% and active listings have virtually not changed since this time last year. The benchmark price across the board is down 3% while the median price is unchanged and we're only seeing a 2.3% drop in average prices, again driven by lower prices in townhouses and condos. It's not such a horrible picture and the trending to normalcy is a strong indication of a balanced market.

DETACHED: total sales are down by over 6% compared to May of last year - a change from the "unchanged" sales in the previous month. New listings are also down significantly - over 9%; putting them in close proximity to what we saw 2 years ago before the huge increases. We are seeing a significant drop in the Benchmark (comparative homes) price of 2.4%. Median price is down only 2% overall, while the average price is relatively unchanged. A comment about these drops -- most of the big drops are in the N.E. and upper S.E. areas where years past price gains required a correction.

SEMI-DETACHED: A 15% drop in total sales but also over 12% in new listings. Active listings are up nearly 10% driven by a lot of new builds in this category of housing. The benchmark price is down less than 1%. Median and Average prices up to now have been somewhat unchanged but in May saw drops of between 5 and 4% respectively. Pending sales were up over 24% in May so this may be the start of a buying trend for summer.

TOWNHOUSE: After a decent April uptick in sales of over 2%, May told a completely different story -- a 23.4% DROP in sales. New listings continued to drop, now over 9% but active listings are still up 5%, similar to what we saw in April. Price drops continue. The benchmark price is down a very significant 6.5%, 5.7% in median, 2.8% in average price. Days on market (DOM) now at 38, up over 15%.

CONDOS: 30% DROP in sales in May (April saw a 26.7% drop) while new listings are finally coming down too - a significant 22% drop. We're well below a healthy thousand now which should lead to a bottoming out of this market soon. Sales are still slow with a 27% drop in pending sales in May compared to last year. Prices continue to drop steadily. Benchmark price is down 9%! Median down 7.2% virtually doubling the drop from 2 years ago with the median price now at $295K, first time under 300K in a while. Average price dropped nearly 5%, now sitting at around 325K. I think this market may still see some drops before a turn around happens.

So I'm thinking we'll see a level playing field for a while. A balanced market in the detached and semi-detached market with some deals here and there, but some not in inner city areas. It's definitely a buyer's market for townhouses and condos but those corrections may lead to a bottoming out soon as a new influx of immigration continues in Calgary and job growth goes along with it.

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