Calgary home sales sink 26 per cent in 2015
Posted Jan 4, 2016 4:08 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The new data delivered from the Calgary Real Estate Board may not come as a surprise, but it nonetheless shows just how much real estate was affected by the economic downturn in 2015.
For the year, CREB is reporting a 26 per cent drop in home sales in 2015 compared to the year before, down 18 per cent in December year-over-year alone.
While many economic observers have been calling the city a buyer’s market for months, CREB Chief Economist Ann-Marie Lurie is now officially using the term.
“I’m looking for that month of supply to be over a certain level and not just be there for one month, but to be there for several consecutive months,” she said. “It was basically three consecutive months of that, that we saw those elevated levels.”
“For people who are making that consideration on selling in the market or what they’re going to be doing, ultimately they have to consider, first of all, what product type that they’re dealing with, if they have a detached home vs. an attached or apartment.”
Lurie said sellers also have to consider what’s happening in their immediate area and although aggregate prices are down, there are certain areas in the city that have seen prices go up.
However, CREB’s data of a 26 per cent drop represents about $3.5 billion in lost sales, with the unadjusted benchmark price down to $448,800, which is a 2.33 per cent decrease from 2014.
Lurie attributed the drop to economic uncertainty combined with job losses.
As for 2016, CREB will be releasing a new outlook next week.
