A return to typical sales activity in the Calgary region
Improved activity across all sectors
Calgary, May 1, 2012 – For the month of April 2012, year-over-year sales activity improved across all sectors in the city. Calgary residential sales total 2,200 for the month, a 26 per cent increase over levels recorded last year.
“The growth in full-time employment, combined with improving migration levels, is translating into improved demand for housing,” says Ann-Marie Lurie, CREB® chief economist. “While sales growth does seem exceptionally strong, it is important to keep in perspective that the sales activity in Calgary is returning to levels more consistent with the long-term average.”
The single-family market continues to tighten, with months of supply dropping below three months. Sales growth continues to outpace new-listings activity, placing downward pressure on inventories. As the market tightens, single-family homes are selling quicker,...
New listings at a good price generating a lot of activity
Calgary, April 2, 2012 – City of Calgary residential sales continued to rise in March 2012, reaching 2,167 units, an increase of 12.6 per cent over last March.
“The rise in activity is related to the continued improvement of our economy and consumer confidence, as some concerns regarding the global economy have eased,” says Ann-Marie Lurie, CREB® chief economist.
After the first quarter of 2012, sales are up by 7.3 per cent over the same time last year. While the increase is significant, when compared to historic activity, residential sales continue to remain below the long-term trend. Monthly new listings remain slightly lower than last year, whereas year-to-date figures show 7.2 per cent fewer listings have come onto the market in the first quarter of this year.
“While the number of listings for the first quarter of 2012 remains low compared...
Early today, our the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB®) issued a clarification note to all member / REALTORS® of the Calgary Real Estate Board Co-operative reminding them of the Board's rules with respect to Multiple Offers. These rules do not apply to other real estate boardsbut may be similar in other areas of the province as we move towards a common set of MLS® System rules. It appears the business practises department is getting quite a few calls for clarification of the rules. They are readily available online, but since on-line statistics show that it is a frequent search result on our website, the bulletin is reprinted here, as follows:
Multiple Offers
With the recent upswing in housing activity, the business practices department has received a number of calls on how to handle multiple offers. Below are the rules and regulations to refer to when dealing with this situation.
Rule and Regulation 16.02
(1) In the event two or more equally acceptable purchase contracts...
Sales Activity on the Rise Throughout the Calgary Region
Improved activity in the last week of the month boosted city sales
Calgary, March 1, 2012 – Sales activity improved across all residential sectors this month compared to a year ago, according to CREB® data released today. Calgary and area sales growth pushed February total residential activity up by 11.6 per cent compared February 2011, mainly due to increased activity in the surrounding towns.
“City sales were boosted by a lot of activity in the last week of the month,” says Bob Jablonski, CREB® president. “This points towards the improvements that we expect to see in our spring market activity.”
Single family sales and condominium townhouse sales were the bright lights in the city of Calgary, while condo apartments continue to lag in volume of sales. There were 1,284 single-family homes sold in February 2012, a 10.9-per-cent increase over last-year figures, and a 5.6-per-cent y...
Tom Bushey is an experienced Associate Broker and REALTOR® with Real Estate Professionals Inc. in Calgary, Alberta. He's passionate about family, friends, technology and specializes in northwest Calgary condos and prestige homes. He welcomes the opportunity to earn the business of you, your friends, neighbours and associates for buying or selling real estate in the Calgary area.
The housing market pointing towards price stability
Calgary, February 1, 2012 – Home sales in the City of Calgary are off to a slow start as buyers show continuing caution, according to figures released today by CREB®.
“Overall, the market is behaving as expected for the winter season,” says Bob Jablonski, president of CREB®.
The year-over-year volume of residential sales in the City of Calgary dropped, but the inventory of available homes declined even faster in January 2012.
The City of Calgary residential market recorded 1,078 sales in January, nearly one per cent below the same month in 2011. This is in part related to the drop in new listings, which declined by 8 per cent over January 2011, causing inventory levels to continue to contract over 2011.
“A lower number of sales is not uncommon for the month of January,” says Jablonski. “The number of sales is offset by the number...
The MLS® System Housing Price Index (HPI) is coming to Calgary in February, as part of a nationwide rollout involving boards in Canada’s largest cities. It’s an exciting new tool that CREB® has developed in cooperation with several other boards and the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA®).
The average price in market can vary widely from month to month, depending on volume shifts in various price segments. Reporting the average price can sometimes falsely exaggerate trends, causing confusion with clients and real estate professionals alike.
The MLS® HPI is a more consistent and reliable barometer of pricing trends than average and median home prices. The average and median prices are affected by changes in the mix of homes sold and can swing dramatically from month-to-month (based on types and prices of properties that are sold in a given month). This new monthly price measure overcomes these shortcomings.
I was fortunate enough to thoroughly enjoy yesterday's Annual Forecast Breakfast and Conference for local Calgary Real Estate REALTORS®. I am always amazed at how few real estate agents actually attend this conference as this is the time of year that everyone is tweeking their 2012 business plans that they created last fall. Or they should be.
I thought that I would take a few moments to share the forecast since this is the most requested content at this time of year.
Obviously, making forecasts are difficult - especially in the turbulent world of economics these days. For the last several years the forecast has been grossly optimistic that they were almost laughable based on economic events of the time. I'm sure there were tons of blog or forum comments questioning how a bunch of professionals could come up with a forecast that was so self-serving when the economists were clearly giving substantially different viewpoints.
Prior to this Wednesday's Annual Forecast Breakfast for local REALTORS®, our new president elect has just made a public forecast for the 2012 Calgary real estate market. Here is the article that will be in tomorrow's Calgary Herald.
So, this appears to be much more optimistic than the ecomists' predictions from CMHC, and the major banks: RBC, CIBC, TD and BMO. One of those recently stated that the best we should expect is an almost flat market for prices, but certainly sales activity could continue to rise. (In fact it should, since we are so far behind the 10-year average for activity - i.e. the number of sales). BMO even came out with a historically low 2.99%, 5-year mortgage (with significant restrictions this past week). At the same time it was reported that there was at least 1 lender offering a 3.99%, 10-year mortgage! With such low, long-term interest products, it just can't be an indication of significant optimism.
Let's hope our new, "fearless leader" is a better...
Tom Bushey is an experienced Associate Broker and REALTOR® with Real Estate Professionals Inc. in Calgary, Alberta. He's passionate about family, friends, technology and specializes in northwest Calgary condos and prestige homes. He welcomes the opportunity to earn the business of you, your friends, neighbours and associates for buying or selling real estate in the Calgary area.
2011 a year of steady improvement for the housing market
Calgary, January 3, 2012 – According to figures released this morning by CREB® (Calgary Real Estate Board), the number of Calgary residential sales in 2011 increased eight per cent over last year, with 18,568 sales for 2011 compared to 17,267 in 2010.
Recovering from tepid sales activity in the first half of 2011, early improvements in employment and migration resulted in a pickup in housing demand in the second half of the year. By the end of June 2011, year-to-date sales activity had only increased by two per cent compared to the second half of the year, where residential sales improved by 15 per cent.
“While sales activity in 2011 remained below the long run average by 17 per cent, monthly figures point towards the trend of this gap narrowing,” says Sano Stante, president of CREB®.
2011 single family sales totaled 13,186, a nine per cent increase...
Despite what you may have read or heard, consumers do not now have unlimited access to Canada’s Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) Systems. You can’t list your home on MLS® System without a using a REALTOR®. And the public website operated by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA®), is not the same as the MLS® System that REALTORS® use.
There have been a lot of misconceptions about the MLS® System and how it works, as the news media struggled to figure out the implications of a recent dispute between CREA and the Competition Bureau, a federal government agency. After the bureau filed a complaint stating that CREA’s MLS® rules were too restrictive, the two organizations came to an agreement (with both sides claiming victory) that now allows real estate brokerages to post “mere listings” on the MLS®.
Today, the REALTORS® of the Victoria Real Estate Board officially began a 90-day pilot project on Designated Agency.
Effective June 1, 2012, all REALTORS® in British Columbia must be practising designated agency in order to submit listings to the MLS® system. This decision by the British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) is based on their observation that when two industry professionals in the same brokerage represent a buyer and seller in the same transaction they are not and have not been practising common law agency correctly; rather their practices are more aligned with the designated agency model. As a consequence, documentation available on REALTOR®Link and documentation required for MLS service agreements will be designated agency documents.
Beginning January 1, 2012, a 90-day pilot project for members of the Victoria Real Estate Board will begin. Full implementation across British Columbia takes place June 1, 2012.
Late on Thursday afternoon, I was informed by the Calgary Real Estate Board Co-operative's Manager of Business Practices, via a general release email, that the Board had formally adopted a policy/rule change that has been in effect in several other real estate boards in this province and others. I posted this on Twitter within the hour and boy did it create a stir for a couple of days... The fur was flying! Some folks just don't like change and don't like evolving this industry for the better. Some even assumed (incorrectly) that the policy was changed because there were some not following it. As one of my fellow colleagues stated, "Our ability to change determines our worth as professionals!"
The policy change came as a bit of a surprise to at least a few fellow Board members. I had heard about it's consideration in late October in a group of over well 100 agents so I'm not sure how they hadn't hear of it. The lack of discussion around it seemed to indicate (to me) that it would...
Source: KWRI - used under standard YouTube license terms.
About Real Estate Professional Tom Bushey:
Tom Bushey is an experienced Associate Broker and REALTOR® with Real Estate Professionals Inc. in Calgary, Alberta. He's passionate about family, friends, technology and specializes in northwest Calgary condos and prestige homes. He welcomes the opportunity to earn the business of you, your friends, neighbours and associates for buying or selling real estate in the Calgary area.
Calgary, December 1, 2011 – According to figures released today by CREB® (Calgary Real Estate Board), Calgary residential sales in November increased eight per cent over last year, at 17,538 after the first 11 months of the year.
While sales activity tends to taper off in the winter months, so far this year Calgary area sales remain significantly stronger than levels recorded last year. Single family home sales totaled 962 for the month, an increase of eight per cent from November 2010. Meanwhile, year-to-date sales totaled 12,464, a 10 per cent increase over last year. Over the long term, however, sales remained a tepid 17 per cent below the 10 year average.
“Despite any global economic cautions, consumers are actively seeking well priced listings in the market, a reflection of their positive long term outlook for the city,” says Sano Stante, president of CREB®. &...
The registered size of a condominium property is the only legally recognized size measurement for condominiums in Alberta under the Condominium Property Act. The Calgary Real Estate Board Co-operative (CREB®) has determined that this means it's important to ensure the accurate reporting of this legal measurement for both new and resale condominium properties listed on the Calgary MLS® System database.
On November 3, the Board of Directors of CREB® (on behalf of the board's membership) passed a motion to allow the total floor area field in the condominium database to be auto-populated with the information entered in the registered size field of the MLS® System database. This registered size will be automatically be uploaded to agents' premium websites and also the aggregator of the over 110 MLS® Systems in Canada, Realtor.ca (formerly mls.ca), and will automatically show what is included in the remarks section of every condominium listing. The public, and real estate...
Several Calgary Communities Get a Boost in Sales and Price
Calgary, November 1, 2011 – According to figures released today by CREB® (Calgary Real Estate Board), Calgary residential sales totaled 16,184 after the first 10 months of the year, an increase of eight per cent over last year.
Over 61 per cent of Calgary’s established communities saw increased sales levels compared to last year. Garrison Woods, Collingwood and Mahogany saw the largest sales increase at 170 per cent combined; nearly half of all Calgary communities recorded price increases, with Shaganappi, Chinook Park and Downtown leading the way with a combined average price increase of 55 per cent.
“A boost in full time jobs throughout the year is gradually translating into improved sales in the real estate sector,” says Sano Stante, president of CREB®. “Consumers are taking advantage of price stability and a healthy variety of selection....
Calgary, June 1, 2011 – According to figures released today by CREB® (Calgary Real Estate Board), year-to-date residential sales in the inner city grew nearly 4 per cent, outperforming the city wide average. City of Calgary residential sales totaled 1,816 in May 2011, a 2 per cent increase in volume over May 2010. However, slower early spring sales resulted in the overall year-to-date sales being 3 per cent lower than the 2010 spring market.
As the city grows, improvements in the inner city communities are consistent with changing preferences in lifestyle options.
"Consumers are looking for shorter commute times to work and easy access to a wider range of services provided by these inner city communities," says Sano Stante, president of CREB®.
"Many of these communities are surrounded by abundant amenities such as parks, mature trees, diverse shopping and transit which appeals to a wide...
iPads are Perfect for Real Estate! - it depends...
I've seen an awful lot of real estate agents and REALTORS® buying iPads without knowing what they can do - or more importantly - what they can't do!
This video outlines the pros and cons of the iPad and covers the basics that all real estate practitioners should consider before they make their purchase.
MLXchange doesn't work on an iPad - so you can't prepare Market Analyses on it or get an idea on competing homes or local area house values. You can't search for properties on our MAIN application.
FUSION MLS doesn't work on an iPad - so the new interface for MLXchange won't work.
Alberta Land Titles (SPIN2) - does not work - so you can't get an owner's name or a check of encumbrances that could have a significant impact on a properties value. So you shouldn't list a home for sale or write an offer to purchase without going back to a desktop PC with Microsoft Windows.
WEBforms doesn't work on an iPad - so you can't...
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A return to typical sales activity in the Calgary region
The MLS® System Housing Price Index (HPI) is coming to Calgary in February, as part of a nationwide rollout involving boards in Canada’s largest cities. It’s an exciting new tool that CREB® has developed in cooperation with several other boards and the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA®).
Prior to this Wednesday's Annual Forecast Breakfast for local REALTORS®, our new president elect has just made a public forecast for the 2012 Calgary real estate market. Here is the article that will be in tomorrow's 
