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February is over and March is coming in like a Lion today allowing time to catch up on stats and planning.
Sales increased as did the volume of listings from the previous week as indicated above. Sales activity increased by 28% from the week before. Expectations are that March will have more positive sales growth with the reduction in interest rates. Now lets hope mother nature cooperates to provide conditions favorable to viewing homes.
February ended in Red Deer, and it ended on a positive note. After experiencing a few months of sluggish sales we experienced an increase over January.
The bulk of the activity is occurring in the $250 - $350,000 range. The activity that occurred in January in that range probably pushed the wave up into higher ranges for February. People moving up from that starter to the larger home.
I believe now is a great time to be buying real estate. Buyers have selection, negotiating power, and the lowest interest rates in decades. If you have secure employment and are in the market to buy, then why wait?
The average sale price in February increased by 25.29% over January from $239,821 to $300,465.
Total sales Volume increased from 62 sales in Red Deer to 113. An increase of 82.26%.
The question is for those of that were waiting for the "bottom", has that passed or was February an anomaly? Just like knowing when the peak is, we don't know where the bottom is (was) until it has passed us.
Real Estate is LOCAL. The numbers are different in Blackfalds than Red Deer, Red Deer is different than Calgary and Alberta is different than a national average. Before you make a real estate decision talk to your Realtor, they should have these numbers for you. Not all do however, this tends to separate the great Realtors from average or even the "part timers".
Do you remember 2005? It may surprise you but 2005 was a record year before 2006, 2007, 2008 for sales. The first three months looked like this:
The headlines and interest rates announcements looked like:
18 October 2005
Bank of Canada raises overnight rate target by 1/4 percentage point to 3 per cent
While the Oil and Gas market today is in decline rather than incline, mortgage money is plentiful and at more affordable rates than 4 years ago. Should we be hiding from the economy and the economic outlook or doing what we can to change it?
Your Friend in Real Estate,
Patrick Galesloot
