Jason Thomas

I was working on a graph that shows the number of properties sold in the Metro Edmonton area over the last 5 years. It clearly shows that May is normally our peak month for number of sales. The red line is this year's sales numbers. If the pattern continues we could see 2000 properties sold in May. That would put us on track with 2008 (blue line) and 2005 (yellow line) sales volume. 2006 (black line) and 2007 (green line) were unusual speculative years and should not be considered a "normal" number of sales.

The market has definitely been brisk. Our days on market average continues to fall (from the 70 days range to 58 days)and the list to sale's price ratio (ie how much the buyers are getting off the price) has been rising. These are two clear signals that the market is strengthening.

How is the market? The short answer is improving! Last year (2008) we had an oversupply of listings (reached 11000 listings), only 4 out of 10 listed homes sold and prices were dropping in the 1% a month range. Thankfully that year is over!
The market demand (sales) have been steady this year. In April we sold 20 more homes than April of 2008 (1% increase). In contrast to the oversupply of listings in 2008 which caused the prices to fall, our listings are way down. New listings are down 1452 from last April (32% lower) Overall Inventory is down 3067 from last year (7539 versus 10606) or down 29% from 2008. The tightening supply has caused the prices to stop their freefall and it looks like we have moved from a buyer's market into a balanced market.
If you are curious what your home is worth today, please don't hesitate to call me at 780.499.5696.

Well the stats are out. The sales were better than December, but much lower than January of 2008 (off 40.9%) there were 730 sales in January versus 608 in December. The positive spin that has been put on this is that the unit sales number has went up month over month, but December was a record low for unit sales.
Analogy: So, it is kind of like saying I upgraded my car from a Gremlin to a Pinto. No offence to Pinto owners out there.
There is good news though. The listing inventory is sitting at 6573, in 2008 we were already up to 8284 homes for sale by the end of January. That means we added 4% to our listing inventory in the month of January. To put that into perspective, our listing inventory grew by 12.7% in January 2008. So, after polishing my crystal ball and if this pace continues my bold prediction is that our listing inventory will hit 7600 homes for sale in May. This inventory level is a balanced supply for our population as long as we see normal sales volume. To sum up, January sales bad, January listings good.

Well December is here already. It has been a wild year for Edmonton real estate. We have seen a peak of listing inventory never seen before. Our sales have been strong for much of the year. Although November has cooled off. We are now at 8015 homes for sale, and we had 891 sales in November. To give you some perspective, normally we see 1200 homes selling in November, so the sales are off by roughly 25%. Inventory has continued to fall, this is good. I heard a rumour that Calgary's inventory was rising this fall. So, the drop in listings pattern has continued. We should see an inventory level in the 7000 range by the end of the year. The one difference I think we will see in 2009 is not as much of a run up in inventory in the first 5 months of the year. The reason I'm saying this, is that many people last fall (2007), were taking their homes off the market in order to relist in the spring of 2008. They thought the market would be stronger in the spring of 2008. It turned out that the sales were strong, but there were too many other sellers thinking along the same lines and we were flooded with new listings this spring. Happy holidays!

Hope you all had a nice Halloween, it is nice to see warmer temperatures and no snow for the little ones.

As for the market, October has continued the inventory decline. The sales in October did dip (1203 sales), although that is consistent with previous Octobers. If you look at the stats from the month of October back to 2004, then you will see most months result in 1200-1300 sales (the only exception being the overheated market of 2006). So, overall we are seeing very consistent results with continued strong stable demand.

The one change has been the inventory decline, as you can see from the graph it is not nearly as steep as previous months. We may not see the 5000-6000 inventory level at the end of the year if this pattern continues. 7000 may be a more realistic prediction.